


Fake It 'Til You Make It

by iamtheenemy (Steph)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Author Knows Nothing About Being a Fashion Designer or a Movie Star, Beverly Marsh is a Good Friend, Eddie makes poor life choices, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, He's Also Very Fucking Jealous, I probably made Richie more famous than he's supposed to be, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Or a Risk Analyst Since We're Naming Things, Slow Burn, These Two Things Are Not Unrelated, including Stan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:23:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph/pseuds/iamtheenemy
Summary: “Then that’s it? You staged some pictures and now it’s done?” Eddie asked.“I wish,” Richie sighed. “This was just a test balloon to see how it goes over. If people react well, then we’re gonna make it official.”“Official?” Eddie said faintly.“You know what I mean. An official fake relationship. Artificially in love in that grand Hollywood tradition.”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier/OMC
Comments: 75
Kudos: 1177
Collections: CLOSE ENOUGH FEBRUARY 2020





	Fake It 'Til You Make It

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Притворяйся, пока это не станет правдой (Fake It 'Til You Make It)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212933) by [Fil_l](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fil_l/pseuds/Fil_l)



> I've never tried to write fake dating before, but it's one of my favorite tropes. I hope you enjoy my take on it.
> 
> Now translated into Russian [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/9037930)!

In the months after Derry, it felt like Eddie was waking up from a thirty year sleep. He looked around at the life he made for himself, and one step at a time began to dismantle it. Leaving Myra was both the easiest and hardest part. Easiest because he knew without a doubt that it had to be done. Hardest because de-tangling your life from someone else’s was messy and stressful, especially when that person fought you tooth and nail the whole way.

Finding a new place to live came next. He put all his shit in storage and slept in a hotel room for two weeks straight until he could find somewhere with a month to month lease that wasn’t a cesspit. He had to settle for something outside of the city, which made his commute to work an even bigger nightmare than it already was, but it was worth it not to have bed bugs.

Bill and Richie already lived in LA, which made it an easy choice for Bev and Ben to get a place out there too. Bev wanted to be as far from her ex-husband as possible as she worked on starting her own solo clothing line while Ben would have followed Bev to Mars if she’d asked. The four of them together had made it their mission to get Eddie, Mike, and Stan to California too.

Mike was on his college-kid-on-a-gap-year trip around the world, but he’d agreed to settle down in LA when he finished traveling.

It took Eddie longer to give in. His job was in New York, and he liked the familiarity of the east coast. But in the end, the siren call of being 3000 miles closer to his friends, while also 3000 miles further from Myra convinced him.

His pre-nup and his excellent job -- thank you very fucking much, Richie -- meant that money wasn’t an issue. He put in for a transfer at work that took a few weeks to get cleared, and then went out to California to look at apartments. He’d found a nice one that was also only half a mile from Richie’s place. Move in was set for the end of the month.

Eddie’s phone buzzed in the middle of making himself dinner. He was sauteing vegetables on the stove, so he gave them another stir before stepping back and checking his messages.

Richie posted to their group chat.

 **Richie:** hey guys guess what. I’m woke now.

Eddie reread the message twice before responding.

 **Eddie:** It’s 3pm in LA, I should fucking hope you’d be awake.

He lowered the heat on the stove and picked up the wooden spoon before a series of buzzes caught his attention again.

 **Richie:** lolololol

 **Bill:** nooooo

 **Bev:** oh god, we’re so old.

 **Mike:** _[link: Urban Dictionary: woke]_

Eddie clicked on the link and then scanned the site while the chat continued to move.

 **Stan:** How the fuck are YOU woke, Richie?

 **Eddie:** I second that question.

 **Richie:** Stan the man, you here? What a coincidence, because I just happened to come across this.  
**Richie:** _[link: photoset of the California Condor]_  
**Richie:** Apparently it’s the largest bird in North America, and it’s only found around California.  
**Richie:** Also I guess being gay = woke. _[link: Richie Tozier: From Joke to Woke]_

 **Stan:** Me and Patty aren’t moving to California, Rich.

 **Ben:** I think the writer just wanted to make that rhyme.

 **Bev:** Hey Richie, want to go here for lunch Tuesday after your fitting?  
**Bev:** _[link: Canter’s Deli: The Best Jewish Deli in LA]_

 **Richie:** Mmm...I could go for a pastrami on rye.

 **Stan:** You’re not going to tempt me with pastrami. I have a career and a pregnant wife here, you assholes.

 **Richie:** Patty-cakes loves us tho

 **Stan:** She doesn’t cross-country move love you, Richie. And she sure as shit doesn’t love that nickname.

 **Eddie:** What fitting?

 **Richie:** _[sad face emoji]_  
**Richie:** I’ve agreed to be Bevvy’s guinea pig.

 **Bev:** What he means is that I have generously offered to help him revamp his look to reflect the new, more mature image he’s going for.

 **Eddie:** Good luck with that.

 **Richie:** Is it really ‘offering to help’ when I’m paying you?

 **Bev:** I’m a busy woman, my time isn’t free.

Eddie snorted and tossed his phone on the counter in order to plate his veggies and pull his grilled chicken out of the oven. He poured himself a glass of distilled water and then went to the kitchen’s tiny island to eat standing up.

Before Richie and Bill came back into his life, Eddie neither knew nor cared about how the Hollywood machine worked. But since they had all reconnected, he’d witnessed firsthand the sausage getting made.

When Richie got back to LA, he came out to his manager, his agent, his assistant and his publicist -- four separate people who, at least to Eddie, seemed to perform exactly the same function in Richie’s life. Things went into overdrive, then, with what Richie dubbed Operation Sparkle! The amount of exclamation points on the end of it grew with each complaint he made in the chat.

First was an interview with _People_ magazine, where he came out and delivered the watered down version of the truth that they’d all decided on to explain away his onstage breakdown. After that, it was a more in-depth piece in _Out_ magazine, followed by an appearance on _The Ellen Show_ , where Richie cried and the Losers each earned Friend of the Year awards by not mentioning that fact once.

Bill, meanwhile, finished writing the end of one screenplay. Then he optioned off the movie rights to another one of his novels to Warner Brothers, with the caveats that he got to write it and Richie got a role in it. Or, as the _Hollywood Reporter_ \-- a publication that Eddie now had to read because his friends kept showing up in it, what the fuck -- put it, ‘newly out and proud comedian Richie Tozier is attached to the next William Denbrough project.’

Sometimes it still socked Eddie in the jaw that his best friends were that famous. Richie’s most recent tweet -- Eddie also had to make his first social media account because of his friends -- was about wanting a Ring Pop, and the last time Eddie checked, it had over two and a half thousand likes, seven hundred retweets and four hundred comments.

* * *

As a rule, Eddie ate lunch in his car at work, because a few years ago he’d seen a mouse run through the break room, and he would rather fucking die than eat in there.

Before, he spent the time fielding Myra’s phone calls for updates about his asthma or the tightness in his back or whatever the fuck else. Now he ate while catching up with the Losers.

So far that morning, he’d missed several pictures of Mike in front of the Taj Mahal, smiling serenely and surrounded by other tourists.

As Eddie went through and liked all the photos, Richie popped in with a new message.

 **Richie:** Everyone needs to take this quiz and tell me their results immediately.  
_[link: Tell Us Your Favorite Type of Sundae, and We’ll Tell You Which Richie Tozier Character You Should Date]_

Eddie blinked and muttered, “What the hell?”

He clicked the hyperlink and his browser opened to an absurd Buzzfeed quiz.

 **Bev:** Josh Waller from Christmas Roadtrip!

 **Mike:** Me too

 **Bill:** Jimmy Tanner from The Stoner Revolution

 **Stan:** Newt Underwood from Space Dynasty. I haven’t seen that one.

 **Richie:** I’m hurt, Staniel! It’s a classic!

 **Ben:** Raul Sanchez from When the Dogs Came Home. You played someone named Raul??

 **Richie:** #hollywoodsowhite  
**Richie:** Eds?

 **Eddie:** I’m not taking this stupid fucking quiz.

 **Richie:** Spoilsport

Eddie took the quiz, obviously, as he finished eating his baby carrots. How did a lactose-free vanilla sundae get him Donny Wright from fucking _Dream Job_ anyway? He’d like to know the formula this person used to come up with these results, because that was some bullshit.

* * *

On a good day, it took Eddie ninety minutes to drive home from work. This was not a good day, and he got to the door of his building after two long hours in the car. He was annoyed, tired, and starving -- in that order.

In the lobby, he stopped and his breath caught in his chest when he saw a FedEx package waiting for him. He picked it up, knowing exactly what it would be, and headed up the stairs to his apartment.

Once he got in, he placed his keys in the bowl by the door, kicked off his shoes and then walked into the kitchen. He ripped open the package and pulled out the dense stack of papers signed by Myra. He flicked through them and then tossed them on the table and ran his fingers through his hair. This next step in the divorce proceedings had taken months, but now that it finally happened, Eddie didn’t feel happy or vindicated. He felt...sad.

His silent, empty apartment didn’t help matters either.

To distract himself, he changed into his pajamas and then set about making himself dinner.

He ate and then put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher and started it. The rumble of the machine coming to life at least provided a little noise.

He grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and went into the living room to watch television. Barely twenty minutes into an episode of some procedural, Eddie gave up and let his anxious energy and jittery muscles guide him off the couch to pace the length of his apartment.

Leaving Myra was supposed to be the start of his new life, and it was, but he hadn’t counted on mourning the end of his old one. It made sense when he thought about it though. Eddie was a creature of habit, and he enjoyed the comfort of familiarity. His life with Myra was familiar. New York was familiar. Putting his shit into a truck and having strangers haul it across the country wasn’t familiar.

Honestly, he thought as he went to the bathroom to scrub his face and brush his teeth vigorously, what was surprising was that it had taken this long for the freak out to hit him. He downed half of his bottle of water and did a dozen more circuits of his tiny apartment before picking up his phone and texting Bev.

_Got a copy of the signed papers._

Eddie read the message back and his heart rate began to slow. He had friends now. Friends who cared about him and could help him through this shit. Friends he’d be with in a few days. 

As the two Losers embroiled in a divorce, he and Bev did a lot of commiserating through text over the past several months. Eddie was sure that he knew more than anyone besides Ben about the details of what happened between Bev and Tom.

 _I’m happy for you_ , Bev replied and then added, _10 more days til you’re out here._

Eddie nodded at the screen of his phone. “Ten more days,” he muttered.

 _You better take me out to dinner_ , he wrote back.

 _lol as if Richie hasn’t got that covered_ , Bev responded.

Eddie’s mouth curled up in a smile. Richie’s enthusiasm for getting all of the Losers in one place was genuinely fucking heartwarming. Even though -- or maybe especially because -- it meant him annoying the shit out of Stan.

On a whim, Eddie opened up his phone and called Richie as he continued to meander around the tiny space.

Richie answered on the second ring.

“Hey, Eds, what’s up?” he asked.

Eddie stopped moving for the first time in an hour, right in the middle of the hallway. He reached out with the hand not holding the phone and braced himself against the wall, bending to rest his forehead against the wood.

“Hey, Richie,” he said.

There was silence as Richie probably waited for Eddie to tell him why the hell he called, but Eddie was too busy taking deep breaths as the knot in his stomach untangled.

“Everything alright?” Richie asked in the wake of Eddie’s silence.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Myra signed the divorce papers.”

“Hey, that’s...good, right?” Richie asked cautiously.

“Yeah,” he repeated. “I expected to be happier about it, but it just feels shitty.”

“Second thoughts?” Richie asked after a moment.

Eddie snorted. “No. No way, man. I’m being weird about it. Things’ll get better once I get out there by you guys.”

“Damn right they will, Eds. If nothing else, you’ll get to see Ben’s gorgeous face whenever you want,” Richie answered.

Eddie cracked a grin into the dark, safe place he’d made for himself between the wall and his arm. “I think I need a drink. I don’t even know why I called you. I just…”

“Hey, that reminds me,” Richie said, cutting Eddie off. “You know what came back to me earlier? Remember sophomore year when I got that fake ID?”

Eddie searched his mind, prodding at the newly recovered memories until the correct one shook loose, and suddenly it was flooding back to him.

“The one that said you were twenty-seven?” Eddie responded.

“And then I made you come with me to try and buy beer at the gas station,” Richie added.

Eddie pushed away from the wall and walked into his bedroom with the phone pressed up to his ear. He laid down on his bed and crossed his feet at the ankles.

“You told the attendant that I was your little brother, you dick,” Eddie said.

“What was I supposed to do? You were still like five foot nothing!” Richie responded with a laugh. “I should have brought Mikey with me.”

While it was true that Richie had shot up once they’d hit high school, with his gangly limbs and the way those coke bottle glasses magnified his eyes, he didn’t appear any older than Eddie. The attendant had taken one look at the ID and one look at him and threatened to call the cops.

Eddie, in a moment of quick thinking, dropped to the ground and pretended to have an asthma attack until the guy got so freaked out that he let them go.

“The way I remembered it, I saved your ass,” Eddie argued.

“That you did, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said. “But it was Big Billy who came up clutch, stealing that bottle of whisky from his old man.”

The most jarring thing about the way his lost memories resurfaced was the immediacy of them when they did. Like now, recalling the first time they all got drunk at a sleepover at Richie’s house the following weekend, he could practically taste the whisky in the back of his throat and the solid presence of Richie’s body against him. He remembered the way Richie would turn to talk to Ben on the other side of Eddie, and his chin would dig into the crown of Eddie’s head.

God, it was so clear, and crystallizing even further as Eddie closed his eyes in the darkness of his bedroom. At one point, three-quarters of the way through the bottle, Richie’s barefoot had ended up resting on top of his, another warm, comfortable point of contact between them. Eddie had complained about Richie’s dirty feet on him at the time, but he didn’t bother to move and neither did Richie.

That was a good memory.

“Didn’t Mike throw up in your garbage can?” Eddie asked.

At the sound of Richie’s surprised laughter, Eddie’s hand slipped under his t-shirt and began to idly rub over his stomach in soothing strokes.

“Oh, shit, he definitely did! My room smelled like puke for a week!”

“Hey, how’s the makeover with Beverly going?” Eddie asked.

Richie blew a loud gust of staticky breath over the line. “I have tried on so many fucking shirts in the last three days. Do you know how many shades of grey there are?”

“Fifty?” Eddie asked.

“Haha,” Richie said. “But seriously, it was shirt after shirt, suit after suit, until Bev was satisfied. And then I did this photoshoot on Friday for a spread in _Esquire_. I’ve never done a serious photoshoot before, I felt like such a jackass. All my other ones have been me fucking around with, like, props and shit.”

“I’m sure it was fine,” Eddie said and then yawned as the day caught up with him.

“We’ll see when they send over the proofs. You sound exhausted,” Richie commented.

“Mmm, my bed is too comfortable, man. I’m about to pass out,” Eddie answered. His shirt was rucked up, and his hand wandered to his chest as he felt himself lulling into drowsiness.

There was a beat of silence, and then Richie asked, “You’re in bed?”

“It’s almost eleven here, and this has been a fuck of a day,” Eddie answered.

“I’ll let you crash then,” Richie said.

“Yeah, OK,” Eddie said. “Goodnight, Richie.”

“‘Night, Eds.”

Eddie shut off his phone, set his alarm, and plugged in his charger. He’d barely put his head back on the pillow before he fell fast asleep.

* * *

Eddie celebrated finishing off his last week of work by going for a long run. It was brisk outside, cold enough that he needed a windbreaker and track pants instead of his usual shirt and shorts, but once his blood started pumping, the cold wind against his face felt good.

He took the time to enjoy his running path, which was filled with lush green trees and thankfully few children, especially late in the evening. He’d have to find another route once he got settled into his new place next week.

He had earbuds in and was listening to his workout mix when the music paused for a text. Without stopping, Eddie fished the phone out of his pocket and saw a text from Stan waiting for him.

 _Did you see this?_ the message said, followed by a link.

Eddie clicked on it and then promptly tripped over his own two feet, landing in a heap on the asphalt. 

“Fuck! Oww, goddamn it!” Eddie swore. The left knee of his track pants had a hole ripped in it, and he could tell that he twisted his right ankle. A woman running in the opposite direction raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him, but he waved her off. He pushed himself up and hobbled to a nearby bench and opened his phone again, thinking maybe he’d read something wrong.

But no, there it was again, in black and white.

“Richie Tozier and CW Star Chad Wickham Spark Dating Rumors After Being Caught in an Intimate Moment”

Who the _fuck_ was _Chad Wickham_ , and since fucking _when_...

Eddie scrolled down and looked through the pictures. They were grainy paparazzi shots taken through the window of some restaurant. They didn’t look too intimate, though, to Eddie’s eye. For all he knew, they could be talking about some movie project or something.

Then he stopped, his stomach turning over, at a picture of the two of them kissing. Richie had his hands on this guy’s face as they both leaned over the booth to meet in the middle.

What the fuck? What the _fuck_? Why wouldn’t he tell the group if he was seeing someone? Why wouldn’t he tell Eddie? They’d talked on the phone a few days ago.

Eddie realized that he’d never actually seen Richie date someone, despite all the trash Richie talked when they were kids. Eddie, therefore, had no experience to prepare him for the sick feeling roiling in his gut at the mere thought of it, like he’d eaten some bad salmon. Like all the air had been wrung from his diaphragm. He looked around anxiously for a garbage can in case he needed to throw up.

His phone pinged again. Stan followed up his first text with a single question mark.

 _No_ , Eddie typed back with shaking fingers. _Did you?_

 _No_ , Stan responded immediately. _I have his name on my Google alerts, and this popped up._

Eddie swiped out of his texts and hit the button to call Richie.

“Don’t get mad at me,” Richie said as soon as he answered.

“What the hell, Richie! You’re dating someone?” Eddie shouted. A man walking a dog gave him a wide berth as he moved past.

“Bev already yelled at me. You’re too late, OK? The position has been filled,” Richie responded.

“Who is this guy?” Eddie demanded, recognizing that he sounded like someone’s protective father. “For god’s sake, is he even legal?”

“Stop. Yes, he’s fucking legal. He’s twenty-five years old. And before you say what I can hear you thinking, it’s not real, alright?” Richie told him.

Eddie swallowed down the rant on the tip of his tongue. “What do you mean, it’s not real? I saw the pictures, you’re practically sucking his whole face into your mouth.”

“OK, wow. A withering critique of my kissing abilities was not where I expected this conversation to go, but it’s about on par with the rest of my day, so I shouldn’t have been surprised,” Richie said, sounding like he was speaking more to himself than Eddie.

“Richie, what do you mean it’s not real?” Eddie asked again.

“Scott and Ana set it up,” Richie said. Eddie picked through his brain to identity those names as Richie’s manager and PR person. “Apparently being a middle aged gay man only interests people for so long if I’m not dating someone. I’ve got that movie coming out next month, and we’re negotiating a Netflix special, so they decided this would be an easy way to keep my name out there.”

“Then... what?” Eddie asked, feeling his heart rate slow. “They hired some twink to pretend to be your boyfriend for the day?”

“And Eddie gets off another good one,” Richie said dryly. “There aren’t many openly gay actors to choose from. Chad agreed because it actually helps his career more than it helps mine, thanks very fucking much.”

“Then that’s it? You staged some pictures and now it’s done?” Eddie asked.

“I wish,” Richie sighed. “This was just a test balloon to see how it goes over. If people react well, then we’re gonna make it official.”

“Official?” Eddie said faintly.

“You know what I mean. An official fake relationship. Artificially in love in that grand Hollywood tradition.” Richie laughed a bit and added, “The guy hates me though.”

Eddie’s back straightened on the bench and his hand clenched around the phone. “Why the fuck does he hate you?”

“Maybe because I’m a schlubby old man who’s practically twice his age?” Richie suggested, his tone self-mocking. “He asked me three times over the course of dinner what it was like to grow up in ‘Generation X.’ Thank god the cameras didn’t pick up his expression after we kissed. It looked like he smelled a fart. I thought he was disgusted by me, but now you’ve got me worried that I’m just a terrible kisser. I don’t know which is worse, honestly.”

“Fuck him then,” Eddie responded vehemently. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Just tell them no.”

Richie sighed. “It’s fine. It really does happen all the time. And it’s not like we’re hurting anyone, unless you count my ego. Oh shit, Mike’s calling. I have to go have this whole conversation again. Talk to you later, Eds.”

The line went dead, and Eddie stared at his phone blankly, his hand clenching and unclenching around it. Then he pulled up his browser and searched for ‘Chad Wickham.’ His Wikipedia page showed that he played Schroeder in what appeared to be a gritty reboot of the Peanuts comics called _Good Grief_. Jesus Christ, who asked for that?

A Google image search showed a bunch of smarmy-looking headshots, as well as plenty of him mugging with his shirt off and his shaved chest oiled up. He looked like someone who would have kicked the shit out of Richie in high school.

Eddie fucking hated him.

* * *

When he got home, Eddie stripped out of his running clothes and dipped into the shower. When he finished, he got through the rest of his night time routine, took a couple Tylenol, then grabbed an ice pack for his ankle.

He made himself comfortable on the couch and then opened up the group chat.

As expected, the first several comments were the Losers reacting to the pictures and asking if anyone knew about them. Then Eddie could tell that Richie spoke to them all privately, because the conversation turned less incredulous and more teasing.

 **Stan:** Hey, at least your fake relationship is with a person of the right gender.

 **Richie:** #progress

 **Bev:** Your fans are already calling you two ‘Rad’

 **Richie:** You know what isn’t RAD?? He didn’t laugh at any of my jokes!! Even the waitress laughed!

 **Bill:** She gets paid to be nice to you.

 **Richie:** Fuck you, I know what a pity laugh sounds like. He asked to sit on the right side of the booth so that the paps would get pictures of his good side. He’s like a sexy block of wood.

Eddie blanched as he read that and typed a reply.

 **Eddie:** He’s not that sexy.

 **Richie:** Thank you, Eddie Spaghetti. That’s the kind of support I was looking for. You’ve redeemed yourself after telling me I’m a bad kisser.

 **Mike:** Hang on, what?

 **Bev:** Explain this!!

 **Richie:** Hope you’re all prepared to hear me complain for the next six months.

Six months? _Six months_? Richie had to pretend to be with this guy for that long?

Richie said the guy wasn’t interested, but how long could that last? It was _Richie_ , he was annoyingly charming even while being an asshole, that was his whole thing. Chad probably did start off thinking, _why won’t this obnoxious fucker shut up?_

But time would pass, and they’d be with each other more, and Chad will start to notice Richie’s big hands, his broad chest, how blue his eyes were, how the right one was a little wider than the left in a way that made his face unique and hard to look away from.

Then soon they’d be out at some gala or fancy Hollywood dinner, and Richie would curl one of those hands around Chad’s wrist. He’d say something deeply mean that would nevertheless make Chad laugh, and Richie would grin in that self-satisfied way that always looked good on him. And suddenly they’d be sitting closer to each other. Their fake kisses would last longer, get deeper, and Chad would rub his hand over Richie’s thigh and move up to his…

Eddie tossed his phone onto his coffee table and sat back, rubbing a hand over his face to try and erase that image from his brain.

Then he stood up, popped an Ambien and went to sleep.

* * *

Regaining his lost memories was a weird and often frustrating process. Thankfully he had the other Losers to talk to, so that he knew he wasn’t going crazy. Some memories came back fully formed and crystal clear, as if a veil was lifted and they were always there just waiting to be pulled back out.

Others, though, the really strong ones, took more effort. While the basic outlines were there, inspecting them felt like watching a video of someone else’s life. It was while he slept that the emotions would rush to the surface, as if his brain knew that Eddie couldn’t handle dealing with it while he was conscious.

Eddie had woken up crying when he remembered the grief of his father’s funeral. He’d shattered his alarm clock against the wall the night the full force of his mother’s betrayal returned.

More than once, Eddie would jerk awake already halfway into a panic attack with the copper-tang of adrenaline in the back of his throat, the lingering agony of broken bones and the visceral, heart-stopping terror strong enough to incapacitate him until he managed to shove it back down.

That night, Eddie's dream had the thick, syrupy humid haze of summer. He could feel sweat sliding down his shoulder blades, the back of his knees, the base of his neck. The rest came in flashes: a hammock; a body pressed against his and amplifying the oppressive heat; a firm hand around his ankle; his knee shoved between two sweaty, skinny thighs; heat crawling up the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. The fluttery, stutter-skip of his heart when his eyes met Richie’s over the top of their comic books.

He woke up to his breath hitching as waves of bittersweet longing crested over him. He rubbed his palm hard over his chest, trying to soothe away the sting. Before that moment, if someone had asked Eddie if he remembered lying in the hammock with Richie on hot summer days, he’d say of course he did. He might even admit that he enjoyed it.

But he hadn’t known about this.

He squeezed his eyes shut as the mingled feelings of fear, excitement, pain and joy washed over him. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year old Eddie hadn’t understood -- or more likely, hadn’t _wanted_ to understand -- what he felt about Richie. He was just confused and guilty and horny _all the time_.

But forty year old Eddie sure the fuck knew.

It _hurt_ , the way that he loved Richie, then _and_ now, but at the same time, Eddie wanted to chase that bright combination of desire, devotion, heartbreak and unrequited love. Teenage Eddie would have climbed mountains for Richie, complaining the whole way, because that was how they were. Middle-aged Eddie saved Richie from a demon alien clown armed only with a stick and utter desperation and then made a joke about fucking Richie’s mom. The more things change.

When his mind recalled these types of big, powerful memories, certain things about Eddie’s current life always slotted into place, like missing pieces of a puzzle that he found behind a couch cushion.

He understood now why his mother had burst into happy tears when he’d told her that he and Myra were engaged. The restlessness he’d felt with Myra, even in the beginning, during their best times, made so much sense too.

He thought about the vague interest he’d always had in other men, especially men wearing glasses, and internally cringed at how _obvious_ his subconscious had been. He’d brushed off those stray feelings in college, because every time his gaze caught on a handsome male face, a thought would hit him with conviction: _not good enough_. He assumed it meant he wasn’t that attracted to men, which meant it definitely wasn’t worth the effort to pursue.

So Eddie buried it neatly under all of his other compartmentalized psychological issues. Then he’d met Myra and the rest sorted itself out.

Eddie laid in bed, one arm splayed above his head, reckoning with the fact that he’d spent twenty years unconsciously comparing every person he met to Richie Tozier, and not a single one had ever matched up.

* * *

Eddie was flying out to Los Angeles on Wednesday, but all his shit was getting picked up by the movers on Tuesday morning, which meant he had three days to do all of his packing. He hadn’t taken much when he left his house, and only accrued basic furniture since moving into his apartment, so it wouldn’t take long.

It gave him a useful excuse, though, for why he wasn’t in the group chat engaged in their playful ribbing of Richie over his fake twink boyfriend. An excuse that wasn’t _because every time I think about it, I want to punch a wall, and I’d really like to get my safety deposit back on this place._

So he spent all of Saturday holed up in his apartment, deep cleaning and organizing. He played his music excessively loudly and ignored every ping of his phone.

* * *

He managed to power through the day that way, but at the end of the night, he couldn’t stop himself from picking up his laptop and firing up Google.

The not-insignificant section of the internet that was now obsessed with Richie was lapping this whole thing up. News of this new ‘relationship’ took up the first three pages of search results for Richie’s name.

Richie’s completely unrelated tweets were overrun with enthusiastic fans shitting themselves over it. #Rad trended on twitter for hours, and Eddie had never come closer to deleting his account for good in the two months he’d had it. Instead, he took a vicious pleasure in going through and blocking every person who used that hashtag in Richie’s mentions.

* * *

On Sunday, he woke up with a list of errands and another full day of packing ahead of him. His first stop was buying extra boxes. The Home Depot near him opened at eight on Sundays, and Eddie was the first one in. He grabbed five extra large cardboard boxes and headed to the register.

The cashier was a bored-looking teenager who gave him a practiced smile as he tallied up Eddie’s total.

“$15.62,” the kid said. “You moving?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replied distractedly as he inserted his card into the machine. “To LA.”

“Oh, rad,” he responded, and Eddie nearly pulled a neck muscle, he looked up so fast.

“What did you say?” he demanded.

The teen blinked back at him and replied, “Uh, I said that’s rad? That you’re, like, moving to LA?”

“Right,” Eddie muttered, feeling instantly stupid. “Sorry, I thought I heard something else.”

“Have a nice day,” the kid said, handing him his receipt.

“Yeah, you too,” Eddie said. “Sorry,” he repeated lamely as he grabbed his boxes and hurried out of the store.

* * *

That afternoon, Eddie finally caught up on the group chat. At the moment, Richie was bemoaning the fact that Chad had apparently never heard of Monty Python.

 **Richie:** He thought it was a movie about snakes.

 **Eddie:** blessed are the cheesemakers

And yeah, fine, maybe Eddie wanted to remind Richie of all the nights they spent in Richie’s living room watching those movies over and over again. Eddie had preferred _Holy Grail_ , while Richie fucking loved _Life of Brian_.

 **Richie:** He asked me if I had any grandkids, and I laughed, but I don’t think he was kidding???

 **Bev:** WOW

 **Ben:** Richie, if you hate him so much, why don’t you get someone else to do it?

 **Richie:** I’m open to suggestions.

 **Mike:** Neil Patrick Harris

 **Richie:** married

 **Bev:** Matt Bomer!

 **Richie:** married

 **Stan:** Sir Ian McKellan

 **Richie:** So far outta my league, we don’t even play the same game.  
**Richie:** Fake it til I make it, right? Hey, who knows, maybe 25 yo Chad, who is currently in the middle of doing an organic juice cleanse, is my soulmate after all.

 **Eddie:** I can do it.

Eddie must have had a stroke or a thirty second mental break, because one second he was watching the conversation unfurl, and in the next, he blinked and the message was sent. He stared at the screen, frozen in wordless horror.

 **Bev:** _[eyes watching emoji] [popcorn emoji]_

Other than that, the chat stayed tellingly silent while Eddie scrambled for a way to turn the whole thing into a joke. He was about to type out some version of ‘haha, gotcha’ when the phone started to ring.

Eddie dropped it on the couch like Pennywise’s head had just popped out of it and watched as Richie’s call rang until it went to voicemail. The silence only lasted a second before the ringing began again.

He took a deep breath and hit answer, bringing the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Eds?” Richie said back.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Eds,” Richie repeated. “What in the absolute fuck…?”

Eddie jumped off of the couch and started making an agitated circle around the living room.

“It’s just an idea,” he said defensively. “I’ll already be living in LA. I’m single. And you hate that fucking Chad guy. So why don’t I just help you out?”

“Why don’t you help me out,” Richie parroted back. “Eddie, I don’t think you know what you’re suggesting. We’re talking about cameras following us, people asking you questions about our fake relationship, pictures of us together all over the internet. And no offense or anything, but you’re not exactly --”

“What?” Eddie interrupted him, back straightening as a flash of hurt zipped through him. “I don’t look like Ben or Mike or fucking _Chad_ so that means I’m not good enough to be seen dating you?”

“Whoa!” Richie said. “OK, I don’t know what minefield I accidentally detonated, but that’s not even close to what I was going to say. Jesus Christ. I was _going_ to say you’re not exactly the best liar. Everything you’re thinking is always written across your face. The constant photos, the paparazzi yelling purposely offensive questions to get you to react, it would make you miserable.”

“Fuck off, I could do it if I wanted to,” Eddie said. He sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and let his forehead drop to the wood of the table. What a way to make himself sound like a whiny, needy asshole.

“But _why_ would you want to?” Richie asked. “Chad gets media exposure out of it. What would you get?”

“I’d help you,” Eddie answered, his head still firmly against the table. “Look, I was just throwing it out there, it’s fine if you don’t want to. I thought it could be fun, you know, tricking people. Like when we were kids. We don’t have to.”

“Like a prank,” Richie said.

“Sure,” Eddie replied. “Like a joke.”

“A joke,” Richie repeated softly.

Eddie winced. “Not that I think your sexuality is a joke,” he hastened to add, backpedaling as fast as he could. “I meant, like, you and me being together. That’s the joke. Because we’re not.” Richie stayed quiet on the other end of the line, and Eddie said, “Look, you obviously don’t want me to. I’m sorry I even suggested it. Forget about it.”

“No, I…” Richie cleared his throat and said, “You’re right, I do hate Chad. Doing it with you would be more fun and a huge weight off of my shoulders. What about Myra, though?”

“What about her?” Eddie asked. “We’re divorced, Rich.”

“I know that, dumbass. I mean, she’ll hear about this and think you’re gay,” Richie said.

“I don’t care,” Eddie insisted. _I probably am. Maybe? Sort of?_ “I don’t give a shit what she thinks about me. It’s over.”

“Alright, well. Then I guess we’re going fake steady, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said. “I’ll talk to my people about it, and we can hash out the specifics when you get out here on Wednesday.”

“Fine, sounds good,” Eddie said, watching as if a spectator, as his life spiraled out of control.

“Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

What had Eddie just done?

* * *

**Richie:** OPERATION REDDIE is on.

 **Stan:** What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

JFK was a better manifestation of Eddie’s fears than anything the clown could have concocted, but for once Eddie was grateful for the distraction it provided. He kept a bottle of hand sanitizer in his pocket and used it liberally as he moved through check in and security. He found his terminal and sat down in an empty chair to wait.

Less than eight hours. If everything went on time, he’d be stepping off of his plane in his new city in less than eight hours. Richie was picking him up from the airport, and then they were meeting Bev, Bill, and Ben for an early dinner. The movers arrived the next morning, so Richie offered to put Eddie up in one of his guest rooms that night.

When they’d made that plan, it seemed completely normal, but Eddie’s life had taken some wild fucking turns in the last seventy-two hours. All he could focus on was imagining himself in Chad’s place in those pictures, kissing Richie, touching him, getting all of his attention.

The whole thing was a mistake. Eddie knew it was a mistake, and that the only way it could possibly end was with him miserable. But if the alternative was group meals with Chad at Richie’s side, holding his hand and refusing to eat anything, well. Heartache Eddie could survive, his newly-remembered adolescence was a testament to that. But Eddie didn’t think he could survive watching Richie with someone else, even if he knew it was fake. At least not yet.

In a year or two, Eddie would have this opened wound stitched up, he’d make sure of it. And when Richie finally found someone -- he was a funny, handsome, rich, famous guy, Eddie knew it wouldn’t take long for it to happen for real -- he’d be a supportive friend. He’d go shopping for engagement rings with him. He’d stand up for his wedding, whatever. Just not yet. Not quite yet.

* * *

Eddie’s neighbor in first class was a businessman who hadn’t looked up from his tablet since the moment he buckled his seatbelt. Eddie sipped from a whisky sour and leaned back, angling his body away from the man and towards the window. As the dramamine kicked in, Eddie’s eyes began to droop. About an hour into the flight, he drifted off to the thought of putting a hand on the back of Richie’s neck and tugging him down into a kiss while cameras went off like fireworks around them.

* * *

He regretted taking the dramamine when the businessman poked him awake what seemed like moments later. Instead, the plane had landed in LAX and people were rustling around to get their bags out of the overhead compartments and exit.

“Thanks, man,” Eddie said, trying to shake the fog off. He thought he’d have plenty of time to prepare for seeing Richie, but he’d only have minutes left. When his phone was out of airplane mode, he saw that Richie had sent him several texts asking about his arrival.

_Shit, sorry, I fell asleep. Deplaning now. Gotta piss first, then I’m heading down to baggage claim._

Richie responded with an affirmative, and Eddie closed his phone and joined the scrum to get off the plane.

Eddie went to the bathroom and tried not to touch anything but his dick. Public bathrooms were cesspits.

Baggage claim was a floor down, so Eddie stepped onto the escalator with his carry-on perched on the step in front of him. As he descended, his eyes zeroed in on Richie standing at the bottom of the escalator and messing around on his phone.

Eddie froze, breath catching in his throat.

Richie looked...really good.

Bev’s influence was obvious. His hair, which had been unkempt and shaggy, a perfect match for his stoner permakid schtick, was cut much shorter and neater. His formerly unruly stubble somehow now emphasized the sharp cut of his jaw instead of obscuring it.

He wore new glasses, Eddie noticed. Slim silver metal frames instead of his giant, clunky plastic ones. The fitted black sweater and dark blue jeans were simple, but made his shoulders look impossibly broad and his legs miles long.

Fuck everything and Beverly Marsh in particular.

His bag hitting the edge as the escalator ended pulled Eddie out of his reverie and he swore out loud as his bag dropped out of his grip and he nearly tripped over it. People getting off the escalator behind him swerved to avoid his flailing limbs as Richie looked up from his phone and saw him struggling.

“Shut up,” Eddie said preemptively, righting himself and grabbing the handle of his carry-on.

“I didn’t say a word,” Richie answered with a wide grin, and then he reached down and enveloped Eddie in a tight hug. Eddie wrapped both of his arms around Richie’s back, heart racing and hands running over the soft material of his sweater. Richie nuzzled into his neck, making Eddie jump, and then whispered into his ear, “There are eyes everywhere.”

He pulled back and wiggled his eyebrows before giving Eddie a wink. He wrapped one arm around Eddie’s shoulders and with the other took his bag and began wheeling it behind him. When Eddie dragged his eyes off of Richie, he noticed that there were, in fact, at least two people with their phones trained on them.

“How fucking rude,” Eddie said and Richie laughed.

“Welcome to Hollywood, baby. Come on, let’s get your luggage.”

* * *

They collected Eddie’s luggage and went to the lot where Richie’s car was parked. The traffic out of LAX was just as terrible as he remembered from his first trip out here to look at apartments. After thirty minutes, they hadn’t even made their way out of the airport.

“So you haven’t said anything about the great Trashmouth transformation,” Richie said. He took his hands off the wheel and gestured up and down his body. “What do you think?”

Eddie examined him for a long moment. His sleeves were pushed up past his elbows. Eddie wanted to lick the delicate bones of his wrist.

“I give you a week before you’re back to wearing Hawaiian shirts from Goodwill,” Eddie answered dryly.

Richie snorted. “See, this is why I needed you here, Eds. You keep me humble.”

* * *

“Hey, uh,” Richie said about an hour into their drive, “before we get to the restaurant, I talked to my team about you -- “

“ _My team_ ,” Eddie mimicked to mask the way he tensed up at the subject change.

“I’m a Hollywood hack, I have a team,” Richie said. “Anyway, everything is a go.”

“What did Chad have to say about getting dumped?” Eddie asked.

“‘Thank god I don’t have to pretend to bang this old guy,’ probably,” Richie said. “I heard he already did an interview with _In Touch_ about how we broke up because we couldn’t make our schedules work, the opportunistic little shit.”

Eddie nodded, silently wishing for something more dramatic.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked.

“The usual playbook for this kind of thing,” Richie answered with a shrug. “Giving a few paps the heads up when we go out for dinner or coffee. Leak some select information from ‘a close friend’ about who you are and how we met. We’ll go to Bev’s show together and then you’ll probably need to come to London with me for a weekend to do the _Lucky Thunder_ premiere.”

“That movie you’re in for like three scenes?” Eddie asked.

“I’m required to go to the premiere and do press for it, especially now that people suddenly give a shit about me,” Richie said. “Ana wants us to keep it going through the taping of my Netflix special.”

Eddie did the math. “Five months.”

Richie slanted a look at him as he signaled and made a right turn. “You can do it for as long as you’re comfortable, seriously. If you meet some woman, you can call this off, and Ana can go fuck herself.”

“I, no,” Eddie stuttered. “That should be fine.”

“You say that now,” Richie said, sounding skeptical. “I told Ana that, you know, we wouldn’t be kissing or anything.”

Eddie started. “Wait, what? But you and Chad did.”

“We’re both actors. We’re both _gay_. Plus we barely even know each other,” Richie explained. “With you and me, it’d just be...weird, don’t you think?”

Eddie fiddled with the zip of his sweater. He should have been relieved, but instead he felt disappointment and jealousy bitter enough that it stung the back of his throat. Richie let fucking useless Chad kiss him but not Eddie?

“Yeah, totally weird,” Eddie muttered, turning to look out the window as they inched forward.

* * *

Dinner with the rest of the Losers was fun, but it wasn’t long until his travels caught up with him, and Eddie found himself dozing off at the table while his four friends talked. Bev used his exhaustion to get him to agree to let her dress him when he and Richie went to her show.

“You’re gonna regret that, Eds,” Richie warned him. “She’s a beast with a measuring tape.”

“Only because you wouldn’t stop fidgeting,” Bev argued. “Anyway, we wouldn't be fashioning a whole new wardrobe for him like we did with you -- you’re welcome, by the way, you look gorgeous. It should take a few hours max, Eddie, and I’ll give you the final say.”

Eddie waved his hand and hid a yawn inside his elbow. “Whatever.” He checked the tracking app on his phone and saw that the movers were on schedule to arrive at his place at ten the next morning.

“I think it’s time for us to go before Eddie starts drooling,” Richie said.

“Hmm, sorry,” Eddie apologized.

“N-n-no worries, Eddie. You live here n-now. We can see each other whenever we want,” Bill said.

“Hell yeah,” Eddie said and then yawned again. “Shit, I’m so tired.”

Ben yawned too. “Now you’ve got me doing it.”

“Alright, let’s get the check already,” Bev said.

Eddie reached into his back pocket to get his wallet and was treated to four voices shouting him down.

“It’s fine,” he argued.

“No way, we’re celebrating your move,” Ben said as he handed his card to the waiter without so much as glancing at the total. “Richie, get him out of here.”

“You heard him, come on, Sleeping Beauty,” Richie said, nudging his arm.

Eddie didn’t have it in him to care much. He was well off, but his friends were literal millionaires, they could handle dinner.

“Thanks, Benny. It’s good to see you guys,” he said.

They all said their goodbyes and Richie and Eddie made the quick drive to Richie’s house.

Eddie had stayed there the last time he’d visited LA, so he didn’t need any direction to the guest room. It had its own ensuite bathroom, and Eddie gratefully showered the airport stench off of himself, brushed his teeth and fell into bed with his hair still damp.

* * *

When Eddie opened his eyes later, it was still pitch black outside. He fumbled for his phone and checked the time, groaning when he saw it wasn’t even three in the morning, but it was almost six in New York, past the time he’d normally be up for the day. Stupid fucking time zones.

Eddie groaned and sat up, knowing he’d never get back to sleep. He entertained himself on his phone for half an hour before deciding to start a pot of coffee. He padded silently on the plush carpet past the closed door of Richie’s bedroom and to the large kitchen at the other end of the house.

He groped at the walls, trying to find a light when Richie’s voice said, “Eds?”

Eddie jumped and clutched his chest and squinted, barely making out Richie’s silhouette in the dark. “Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouted.

“Sorry,” Richie said with a snicker. Eddie saw the vague shape of him move and then the light came on, momentarily blinding him.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw Richie standing in front of him, naked except for a pair of red boxers. His newly-shorn hair was messy and he wore his old, giant black glasses. His chest and arms were dusted with dark hair, and Eddie’s fingers twitched at his sides as he fought the urge to reach out and touch it.

Richie held a glass of water in one hand and studied Eddie with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Eds? What are you doing up? You need something?” he asked.

“Time zones,” Eddie forced out. “I was gonna make some coffee.”

“Sucks,” Richie said. He rubbed a hand over his hair sleepily, musing it further, and then chugged the glass of water.

Eddie’s gaze went down further. Richie’s boxers, clearly a size too big, hung loosely off of his hips, leading to trim thighs and hairy, knobby knees. Eddie’s dick gave a hard jerk inside of his pajama pants, and he forced his eyes away, at the ceiling, the cabinets, the floor. Anywhere that wasn’t his best friend’s body that he wanted to climb like a fucking tree.

Richie finished his water and placed the glass in the sink. He said, “Coffee maker is on the counter. Everything else is in the fridge. I’m going back to bed.”

“Have you been working out?” Eddie blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Uh,” Richie said and looked down. He seemed to realize his state of undress and crossed his arms over his chest self-consciously. It only served to show off his toned biceps.

An image of him lifting Eddie onto the table flashed through his mind and his stomach swooped. Yeah, Eddie would have to revisit that idea.

Richie continued, ignorant of Eddie’s thoughts. “Didn’t I tell you? I got a personal trainer. She’s a monster.”

“I can tell,” Eddie said. “You look...fit.”

Richie raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s pretty gay, Eds,” he said.

 _Since at least ‘88_ he thought wildly. Eddie swallowed as the words threatened to break free. Instead, he said, “Well, when in Rome…” God, he was such a fucking coward.

Richie laughed lightly as he walked towards the doorway. “I’m going to bed. If you’re planning on having any gay orgies, just put down some newspaper or something first.”

“Right, will do,” Eddie said and briefly considered sticking his head in the oven. Where was a killer clown when he really needed one?

He tried to get his rapid breathing under control and then gave up and turned off the kitchen lights. He crept back down the hallway and into the guest room.

The door shut with a quiet snick, and then Eddie pressed his back against the wall and had his dick out, already half-hard. He bit down on his other fist to keep from making any noise, and then just went to town.

The image of wrapping his legs around Richie’s waist was so clear it could have been a movie, but things got disjointed after that. He imagined his back hitting the kitchen table, Richie pushing him down and dropping to his knees.

Myra refused to ever blow Eddie, but he knew that Richie would. Richie would swallow his dick down happily, and he was a sloppy fuck, so it would be all wet, saliva dripping down the shaft and onto Eddie’s balls. Eddie would be fucking _gone_ , no doubt about it. He’d bust in minutes, if he was lucky.

Eddie’s hand worked furiously, his dick hard and leaking, as he imagined Richie’s lips stretched around his dick, his eyes dancing as he watched Eddie fall apart.

Eddie came, his groan muffled around the knuckle between his teeth, and he slouched against the wall when his knees went weak.

* * *

Eddie spent the next two days directing movers, organizing his new apartment and answering the backup of emails he’d been ignoring for the last week. His first day at the LA office was Monday, so he had the weekend to get settled into his place and explore his neighborhood.

It would not, unfortunately, give him time to get his head on straight -- so to speak -- about Richie, because the two of them were going on their first ‘date’ that night.

The day before, Eddie met Richie’s PR person, Ana, an aggressively cheerful woman who nonetheless looked like she would happily tear Eddie’s head from his body and bathe in his blood if he messed up her carefully orchestrated plans. She laid out a timeline for their relationship similar to what Richie already explained to him and then had Eddie sign an NDA.

“Childhood sweethearts. People are going to eat this shit up,” she’d promised.

“I told her you didn’t need to sign that,” Richie said later, sounding contrite, “but she insisted.”

“I understand where she’s coming from,” Eddie said. “I’m a _risk analyst_ , Richie. It’s not like I could blame her.”

Richie picked out the restaurant, a Mexican place not far from Richie’s house, and a handful of photographers would be waiting for them to arrive. This was Eddie’s first date with anyone but Myra since college. As many times as he reminded himself that it wasn’t real, he knew he wanted it to be, and that was enough spike his anxiety through the roof as he got ready.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, evaluating his red collared shirt and jeans like a teenage girl getting ready for prom. In the back of his mind, he pictured fucking _Chad_ with his perfectly styled, curly hair and black leather jacket. Compared to him, Eddie looked like...well, he looked like a forty year old desk jockey.

Richie may not have liked Chad’s personality, but he’d thought he was hot. He’d called him _sexy_ in their group chat. A sexy block of wood.

With a frustrated groan, Eddie ripped his shirt off over his head and went back to his closet. Collared shirts weren’t sexy. Finally, he settled on a plain black shirt with an open green and black flannel shirt over it.

The door buzzer sounded then, and Eddie went into the front room and hit the talk button.

“Richie?” he asked.

“Yeah, you ready?” Richie responded over the intercom.

“I’m on my way.”

Eddie slipped his phone into his back pocket, grabbed his keys, and hit the lights. He took the stairs two at a time and saw Richie leaning against the railing, looking so fucking handsome in a blue henley and fitted black jeans. Eddie’s heart skipped a beat in his chest and he barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at himself.

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey,” Richie replied. They stared at each other for a moment before Richie laughed a little awkwardly. “I thought about getting you flowers as a joke, but I figured this was weird enough already.”

“Where’s your car?” Eddie asked, looking around and refusing to dwell on the fact that he wished Richie had gotten him the stupid flowers.

Richie gestured at the black SUV idling in front of the fire hydrant. “That’s our ride. I got us a driver. Won’t do much for my rep if I’m photographed driving drunk.”

They got into the backseat of the car, and Richie introduced Eddie to the man behind the wheel.

“This is Vince, he’s my regular driver. He’s cool. Vince, this is Eddie.”

“Nice to meet you, Eddie,” Vince said, his eyes finding Eddie’s in the rear view mirror as he pulled away from the curb.

“Same to you,” Eddie said and then put on his seat belt. He looked over at Richie, who was doing something on his cell phone. Eddie frowned. “Are you not going to buckle your seat belt?”

Richie looked up. “I was responding to Bev’s text.”

“The car’s moving, Rich! Put it on!”

“I am!”

“47% of all car accident fatalities happen because the person wasn’t wearing a seat belt,” Eddie continued.

“I said I’m doing it, Mom. God!” Richie shouted as he clicked the belt into place. “Happy?”

“Excuse me for not wanting your brain to become mincemeat on the side of the road,” Eddie grumbled.

“Is that slight on Vince’s driving?” Richie asked. “It feels like a slight on his driving.”

“No, it’s not,” Eddie returned. “Anyone can get into a car accident. _I_ got into a car accident when Mike called me. You never know who you’re on the road with. Someone could be on their cell phone -- “

“Vince, are you on your cell phone up there, buddy?” Richie asked.

“No, sir,” Vince answered.

Eddie crossed his arms. “Haha. Fine, die for all I care.”

“And you two are going on a...date?” Vince asked, sounding reasonably skeptical.

“Love wins, Vince,” Richie answered.

“If you say so.”

Richie turned to look back at Eddie and grinned. “How did I survive all those years without you looking after me, Eds?” he asked.

“Fucked if I know,” he replied.

* * *

Vince stopped in front of the restaurant fifteen minutes later. Eddie could see the photographers waiting near the door. He fiddled with his shirt and chewed on the corner of his lip nervously.

“It’ll be fine. Just look straight ahead and pretend you don’t see them. If you could smile like you actually enjoy my company, that would be nice too,” Richie said.

“Sure,” Eddie agreed as he tugged on his collar. “Can we just do this?”

“I’m ready if you are,” Richie said, and he opened the door and climbed out.

Eddie scooted out after him, and the two walked side by side towards the awaiting paparazzi. The sound of cameras clicking followed them along their path, and Eddie shoved his hands in his pockets and pasted on a pained smile.

“Richie, what happened to Chad?” one of the paps called out.

Richie ignored the question and held the door open for Eddie to walk through. The hostess was ready when they arrived and lead them to a booth in the back. Eddie could feel the eyes of every other patron on them as they made their way through the dining room.

The location afforded them some privacy from the other guests, but conveniently faced a window. His eyes skimming over the photographers outside, still snapping away. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop and tried to slow his burgeoning panic.

Richie probably saw it all on his face, because he lowered his menu and said, “There’s still time to back out, Eds. We haven’t done anything more than hug at an airport and get some dinner.”

“No, fuck you, we’re doing this,” Eddie said, determinedly cracking open his menu and reading over the options.

“OK, fine, we’re doing this,” Richie agreed.

Eddie stared at him impatiently. “Well?”

“Well what?” Richie asked.

“What do you mean what? Date me!” Eddie said.

“I am! Right now! We’re on a date!” Richie said.

“Not yet we’re not. You said yourself that this could just be dinner between friends. What would you do if this was real?” Eddie asked. Alarm bells were going off in his head -- _danger! abort!_ \-- but he kept plowing forward.

Richie swallowed, eyes widening. “What would I do if I was really on a date with you?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, and then feeling self-conscious and too obvious added, “Or not me. Someone else, someone you’re interested in. Come on, what’s your move?”

“Eds, I’m a forty year old fresh out of the closet. All my moves involve the handicap stall in a club bathroom.” The pulse in Eddie’s neck jumped so quickly that he was sure Richie could see it. His eyes slid to the restrooms against his will. After a second, Richie relented. “I guess I’d hold your hand.”

“Then hold my hand, damn!” Eddie said, slamming his hand on the table, palm down.

Richie slapped his own on top and said, “There, happy?”

Just then, the waitress arrived at the table and greeted them with a smile.

“Hi,” Richie said. “We need a minute to think, but could you bring us two shots of Don Julio?”

The waitress walked away, and Eddie said, “Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be? We’re gonna get drunk?”

“I fucking guess so,” Richie said. He cut a glance outside at the paparazzi and visibly rolled his shoulders and loosened his posture but didn’t make any move to keep the conversation going. Looked like Eddie would have to do all the work, like always.

“That shirt looks good on you,” he said. The compliment came out more like a complaint than he’d intended.

Richie looked down at himself. “Huh?”

“Your shirt,” Eddie repeated and then searched for a way to say _the two open buttons on top are driving me fucking nuts, and now that I know what’s under there, I want it on top of me._. “It...fits you well. It’s a good color on you.”

“Oh.” Richie’s tongue peaked out and ran over his bottom lip, and Eddie helplessly watched the movement. “Thanks. Bev picked it out.”

Eddie snorted. “Of course she did. Your taste is for shit.”

The waitress returned with their shots and placed one in front of each of them.

“Thanks,” Richie said. “Another round of these and then we’ll be ready to order.” He picked up his shot glass with the hand not on top of Eddie’s and motioned for Eddie to do the same. “To Bev’s superior taste.”

“To Bev’s infinite patience,” Eddie countered, and they clinked glasses and drank. The expensive tequila slid smoothly down his throat, and he chased it with a sip of water. “Now you have to say something you like about me.” Richie just stared at him and Eddie blew out an exasperated sigh. “I’m your best friend, it shouldn’t be that hard.”

An expression rippled over Richie’s face and some kind of resolve settled over his features. His fingers tightened around Eddie’s hand and he angled his body in closer.

“You know what I like about you?”

“What?” Eddie asked, waiting for the punchline. Something about his height, maybe, or his obsession with hygiene.

“Your dimples,” Richie said instead, bringing Eddie’s mind to a screeching halt.

“My dimples?” he asked dumbly.

“They’re cute,” Richie explained. “They’ve always been cute. I like when they come out because of me. It means, you know, that I did something to make you happy.”

Eddie felt his whole face heat up, and he looked down at where their hands were joined together on top of the table. Richie rubbed his thumb along Eddie’s wrist, and holy shit, Eddie was not prepared for what that did to him.

Richie watched him with a fond look, “Yup, just like that.”

The waitress dropped off their second round of shots, and Eddie downed his as soon as it was in front of him. The two of them placed their order, and when she walked away, Eddie admitted to Richie, “OK, that was pretty good.”

“Yeah?” Richie asked, pleased.

“Yeah,” Eddie confirmed. “I guess I forgot that you’re an actor.”

“Planning on making this part of my Emmy reel when it ends up on _Hollywood Tonight_.”

Eddie barked out a surprised laugh, and then ducked his head and rubbed a self-conscious hand over his cheek where he knew his dimple was showing.

Richie watched his reaction with a half-smile and said, “You’re blushing.”

“Fuck off, it’s the tequila,” Eddie muttered, embarrassed and flustered, and Richie tilted his head back and grinned.

* * *

“So who was your first kiss?” Richie asked after their dinner and a half dozen Modelos had been finished between them. “Was it Wendy Keaton in seventh grade?”

Eddie blinked, the alcohol making him a bit slow. “Wendy...who? Oh, from our social studies class? No.”

“Then who?” Richie prodded. Eddie stayed silent, fingernail scratching at the label of his beer. “Eds? You wanted typical date talk. Come on, now I have to know. It’s gotta be embarrassing if you don’t want to tell me.”

The last sip of his beer was warm, and Eddie grimaced as he swallowed it down. Richie motioned for two more from the waitress.

“I guess it _was_ pretty embarrassing...considering it was you,” Eddie said.

Richie froze with his bottle of beer halfway to his mouth. “Me? Wha…?” he stuttered.

“Freshman year, sleeping over at Stan’s house. You probably don’t remember,” Eddie said.

They had been reading Spider-Man comics on Stan’s bed while Stan, Ben, and Bill played a board game on the floor.

It was well past three in the morning and they were all pretty punchdrunk. Richie made a stupid joke about Eddie being his Gwen Stacy, and before Eddie had time to process what was happening, Richie had grabbed him by his t-shirt and yanked him in for a kiss. Then he pushed Eddie away and cracked up, nearly falling off the other side of the bed in his hysterics. Eddie hadn’t been able to come up with a single thing to say, and so the moment passed unremarked upon.

In the present, Richie stared at him with his lips parted before shaking his head and saying, “I do remember that. I didn’t know it was your first kiss though. What about that girl you dated in eighth grade? The one who wore those pigtails all the time?”

“Tracy...something…” Eddie said, searching his brain for that long-forgotten name. “Tracy, Tracy Macintosh! No, we never kissed. She was waiting for marriage.”

“To _kiss_?” Richie asked incredulously.

“We were in eighth grade, what the hell do you want from me?”

Richie slapped his knee as he dissolved into laughter. “Oh man, that’s so great. I can’t believe I didn’t know that. Little Tracy Macintosh getting her first kiss on her wedding day. The pigtails should have given it away,” he said.

“You would have known if you hadn’t been pissed off at me the entire two weeks that I dated her,” Eddie told him. “Why were you even mad, I never found out. Mike swore you had a crush on her.”

“You expect me to remember something from that long ago?” Richie asked as he waved his thanks to the waitress who was working her way to a big fucking tip at this rate. “Damn, if I’d’ve known that was your first kiss, I would have made it better. Thrown in a little tongue action.”

“I would have bitten it off,” Eddie said. “Anyway, I don’t need to ask who your first kiss was. Jennifer Morgan, behind the bleachers during freshman Homecoming. You wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“I believe that is what a psychologist would call overcompensating,” Richie said with an ironic curl of his mouth. “I was so fucking excited to be normal for once. But that one doesn’t count, because of, well…” He gestured to himself. “But also because the only reason she kissed me in the first place was to try and get me to set her up with Stan.”

Eddie popped a tortilla chip in his mouth. “No shit? Did you?”

“Nah,” Richie said dismissively, “that was when he was obsessed with Becky Heffernan.”

Eddie dropped back into the cushioned seat of the booth. “How the fuck did I forget about the Year of Becky Heffernan?” Eddie asked.

“I guess the clown did us some favors after all,” Richie said just as Eddie took a sip of his beer, and he nearly did a spit take.

“Alright, so if she doesn’t count, then who was your first kiss?” he asked when he got himself under control again.

“It would have to be you then, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie said, but Eddie was shaking his head before Richie could finish.

“No way, _that one_ doesn’t count,” he said.

“What?” Richie demanded. “You just said it was _your_ first. Why doesn’t it count for me?”

“Because you didn’t even remember it!” Eddie said. Meanwhile, Eddie’s hands hadn’t stopped shaking the whole rest of that night.

“Yes, I did!” Richie argued. “I just didn’t know _you_ did.”

“Well, I did.”

“Well, if it counts for you, then it counts for me too.”

“Fine! Then we were each other’s first kiss,” Eddie said.

“Fine!”

Sometime between one ‘fine’ and the next, the two of them had moved so that they were pressed together from shoulder to thigh. Neither of them mentioned it.

* * *

“Have you ever had fried ice cream?” Richie asked. They’d stopped drinking for the night, and their food had long been cleared away, but the two of them kept finding new things to talk about.

“That sounds disgusting,” Eddie said.

“You’re disgusting,” Richie retorted. “Hey, Maribel?” Richie called out to the waitress who he was now on a first name basis with. “Can you order us a fried ice cream, please?”

“Is it dairy?” Eddie asked.

“It’s _ice cream_ ,” Richie answered. “And you’re not allergic to dairy. You’ve never been allergic to dairy.”

“It’s not an allergy, it’s an intolerance,” Eddie said.

“One bite, Eds. That’s all I ask,” Richie said.

Eddie put up a fight for form’s sake, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was enjoying himself too much to argue.

The dessert came out minutes later, and Eddie frowned at the mound of ice cream covered in cereal and surrounded by what looked like a taco shell. It was smothered with whipped cream and strawberry sauce.

Eddie picked up one of the spoons and poked at it dubiously. Richie watched him toy with it for a minute before he took the spoon out of Eddie’s hand and dug straight into the middle of the ice cream. He turned the spoon so that the handle faced Eddie and raised an eyebrow.

“One bite.”

Eddie let his hesitance show through as he slowly took a bite. His eyes widened.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted,” he declared. He went in for another scoop.

Richie slapped his hands on the table. “I fucking knew it! Maribel! We’re gonna need another one of these!”

* * *

“You ready to go back out there?” Richie asked later.

Eddie rolled his shoulders as he eyed the photographers still loitering out front.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said.

“The car’s out front,” Richie said. “Maribel, it’s been real!”

She sent them a cheerful wave, probably aided by the fifty percent tip that Richie had given her, as well as the fact that they were finally getting the fuck out of her hair. Richie reached out his hand towards him and Eddie took it.

The flashes of the cameras started as soon as they stepped out the door, and Eddie focused on schooling his face into a neutral expression and looking straight ahead as they speedwalked to the car. Richie held the door opened, and Eddie climbed in and scooted over to the other end of the seat. Richie got in after him and Vince took off as soon as the door shut.

When they turned the corner, Richie said, “I think that went pretty well.”

“Mmm,” Eddie agreed, the residual alcohol and his full stomach making him sleepy.

The rest of the trip was quiet, and Eddie felt himself start to doze off when the car came to a stop.

“Eddie, we’re here,” Richie said, rousing him.

Eddie peered out the window in foggy confusion at the sight of his apartment building. It took his brain a second to understand why: he’d expected them to go back to Richie’s house together, like the end of a real date.

 _Get a grip, Kaspbrak!_ he berated himself, suddenly alert.

“Eds?” Richie asked.

“Didn’t recognize the place in the dark,” Eddie mumbled. He went to get out and realized that he and Richie were still holding hands.

“Oh shit, sorry,” Richie said, letting go and moving his arm into his own lap. “Guess I’m drunker than I thought.”

“Me too,” Eddie said. He flexed the hand that had been holding Richie’s. “Hey Rich? I had a good time.”

“Me too,” Richie said with a grin. “Get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight,” Eddie said.

He walked across the sidewalk and up to the stairs of his building. When he didn’t hear the car leave, he turned around and saw that Vince was waiting for him to get inside.

Eddie made it up the two flights of stairs to his apartment. He unlocked the door, took off his shoes, dropped his keys in the bowl and sat on the couch. Then he bent over, put his forehead on his knees and just breathed.

He’d told Richie that he’d had a good time, but the truth was that it had been one of his best nights in recent memory -- and definitely the best date he’d ever been on.

Eddie had to deal with this shit and fast, or he was going to lose his fucking mind by the end of it all.

His phone pinged inside of his pocket. He fished it out and saw a notification that Richie had posted an update on Twitter. Eddie opened the app.

**richie tozier ✓ @thetrashmouth**  
_Hope everyone’s night was as great as mine! :)_

Eddie’s heart gave a wild, heavy thud inside of his chest. He hesitated a moment and then liked the tweet. The clock in the corner of his screen said it was almost eleven-thirty, which meant it was nearly two-thirty on the east coast, which explained his exhaustion.

He shuffled into the bathroom and then stripped down to his undershirt and underwear and crashed into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The pictures were posted on TMZ before Eddie woke up. In fact, his alarm that morning was the continuous buzzing of his phone on his nightstand.

He didn’t bother getting out of bed as he opened up the group text.

 **Ben:** It’s really happening!  
_[link: Chad Who? Richie Tozier Seen Charming a New Mystery Man at Cozy LA Hotspot]_

 **Bev:** Did he ~*CHARM*~ you, Eddie?

 **Stan:** He looks pretty charmed.  
_[image: paparazzi shot of Eddie, at least two beers in, with his body practically tilted at a forty-five degree angle to get closer to Richie. He has his elbow propped on the table and his head resting against his open hand. Richie’s saying something and Eddie’s gazing at him like he’d hung the goddamn moon.]_

 **Bev:** _[blue heart emoji][red heart emoji][green heart emoji]_

Eddie dropped his phone onto his stomach and groaned in abject humiliation. With reluctance, his face flaming, he made himself pick it up and read through the article. It gave his full name and described him as Richie’s old childhood friend.

The photos though. The photos were...revealing. You’d have to be blind not to see the affection shining out of Eddie’s face in all of them. God, what had Richie told him about his emotions always showing on his face?

Richie looked lovesick too, staring at him with a dopey half-smile and touching him in nearly all the pictures. But Richie was an actor, and Eddie remembered the way that he practically had to force Richie to take his hand.

He stopped on one picture and clicked to enlarge it. The photographer captured the moment when Richie had complimented Eddie early in their meal. There was no reasonable excuse for Eddie’s heavy-lidded eyes staring down at Richie’s thumb stroking his wrist. He looked about thirty seconds away from crawling across the booth and into his lap.

Eddie wanted to step in front of a bus.

 **Richie:** Eddie Spaghetti taking one for the team when none of you other fuckers even offered to help.

 **Ben:** Mike’s in Hong Kong and the rest of us are married!

 **Mike:** If I was in LA, I’d fake date you, Richie.

Eddie breathed a sigh of relief as the conversation moved on. He flicked the phone onto silent and tossed it back on his nightstand. Then he turned his face into the pillow, shoved his hand inside his underwear and brought himself off to an embarrassing climax.

* * *

As time went on, Eddie began adjusting to that skin-prickling feeling of people watching him with Richie. After convincing Eddie to eat fried ice cream at the Mexican place, Richie made it his new mission to get Eddie to try every unhealthy food he’d spent his life avoiding.

Eddie made it a point to take his Epi-pen with him whenever they ate, but so far he hadn’t needed it. Cashew chicken was amazing. He wasn’t crazy about shrimp but he’d devoured almost a full lobster.

Mozzarella sticks were another winner, along with red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and cheeseburgers full of thick, greasy bacon. The most surprising thing he’d come to enjoy was flavored coffee. He drank black coffee by the gallon and thought he’d hate any sugar mixed into it, but lattes were delicious. He’d started running before _and_ after work just to make up for it.

His new office was almost a carbon-copy of his old one. He got hit with intense deja vu when the manager showed him to his cubicle. The only decoration he added was a picture of all the Losers together after they’d defeated Pennywise.

People made polite conversation and general water cooler talk with, and it was all very familiar and boring. The only issue was an intern who clearly recognized Eddie, either because of the paparazzi photos or because he saw Richie in the photo on his desk. The kid passed his desk at least a dozen times a day with wide eyes. No amount of glaring from Eddie dissuaded him, and Eddie resigned himself to attention for the foreseeable future.

When he’d first started he made sure to secure the personal days he’d need to go to London for Richie’s premiere like he’d promised. So besides the intern, the only person at work who was aware of his fake relationship was Connie in HR, who didn’t give a shit.

Weeks into their arrangement, Richie and Eddie sat across from each other at a coffee shop, Richie with an espresso and Eddie with a vanilla latte. Eddie clocked someone aiming a cell phone at them and ignored it.

At some point, Richie had lost his nervousness about touching Eddie, and now he did it _all the time_ in public. He took to calling Eddie pet names in public too: babe and sweetheart and whatever stupid thing he came up with on the fly. Sometimes he did it with his tongue firmly in cheek, but it was the off-handed ones that got to Eddie.

Once when they were alone watching movies at Richie’s house, Richie called out, “Could you grab me another beer, babe?” Eddie froze, but Richie was engrossed in the movie and didn’t seem to notice what he’d done. So Eddie, coward that he was, said nothing, ignored the way his stomach dropped and got him another fucking beer.

“I’ve got that interview for _Vanity Fair_ tomorrow,” Richie said and then sat up straighter, looking over Eddie’s shoulder. “Incoming.”

A young woman walked up to their table and asked Richie to sign her cup and to get a selfie. He smiled and agreed, using the pen she handed him. The interaction lasted only about a minute, but Eddie learned from experience that the first autograph Richie signed gave other people the idea to do the same.

Without a word, they both picked up their cups and left the shop, heading for Richie’s car.

“So, _Vanity Fair_?” Eddie prompted, picking the conversation up where they left off.

“Yeah, tomorrow morning. I thought I’d warn you that I know I’m going to get questions about our thing,” Richie said.

“You’re going to tell the story we decided on, right?” Eddie asked.

“Of course. I just wanted you to know that it’s going to be officially in print soon,” Richie said.

Eddie shrugged as he opened the passenger side door. “Bev’s show is next week, so it’s going to be in print no matter what.”

“Well, I just wanted you prepared,” Richie said again.

“Speaking of prepared, you’re coming with me to Bev’s studio on Friday for that fitting,” Eddie said.

“Wouldn’t miss it, Eds,” Richie replied.

* * *

  
Bev looked him up and down with an excited gleam in her eye when he and Richie walked off the elevator.

“This is going to be so much fun!” she said.

“She means for her,” Richie clarified to Eddie before dropping down onto a plush chair. “Hey, when does the champagne and pizza arrive? I’ve seen _Pretty Woman_ , I know how this works.”

“I have a few raspberry White Claws in the back,” Bev answered. “Order your own pizza if you want it.”

“Done and done,” Richie said, pulling out his cell phone and heading into an adjacent room.

“Alright, Kaspbrak, lose the hoodie. Let’s do this.” She tugged the measuring tape off from around her neck and beckoned him closer. Eddie did as he was told and placed his black hoodie on a nearby table.

“I don’t see why I can’t wear one of my own suits,” Eddie said. “It’s not like anyone is going to care about me.”

“Because you’re two of my best guys,” Bev said. “And also if you come to my show looking like an accountant, I’ll have to pretend not to know you.”

Bev’s assistant was a friendly, efficient man named Jin who moved around Bev and Eddie and seemed to know what she needed before she asked for it. She patiently and methodically took his measurements and Jin wrote them in a notebook.

“Pizza is on its way,” Richie said, coming back with a six-pack of White Claw. He popped the cap on one and took a drink.

“You won’t be wearing anything from the new collection, obviously,” Bev continued around a pair of bobby pins in her mouth. “I don’t want you to pull focus from the runway show. Besides, the pieces in that would be way too much for you. I’m thinking simple and elegant, but with a little bit of flare.”

Eddie cast a beseeching look over at Richie, who smirked back at him. “I told you,” he said.

“That should do it. Jin will get us some samples, and we can figure out what works best for you,” Bev said. “Now come on. Shirt and pants off.”

Eddie began to unbutton his plaid shirt when Richie slapped his legs and stood up.

“I’m gonna go check on the pizza,” he said and headed out the door.

Eddie yanked off his shirt and Bev gave an appreciative whistle. “Look at those abs.”

“The woman married to Ben Hanscom isn’t impressed by my abs,” he replied as he moved onto his pants and stood in front of her wearing only his black boxer briefs. It should have been awkward, but it was _Bev_ , who he’d killed an alien clown with. They were past the point of awkwardness.

“The woman married to Ben Hanscom knows a hottie when she sees one,” she retorted. “Oh, Jin, perfect timing.”

Jin walked back into the room with a rolling clothes rack filled with suits. Eddie’s eyes widened.

“Do I have to try on all of that?” he asked.

“Not if we find the right thing fast,” Bev said, pulling a suit off the rack and handing it to him.

Eddie spent the next half an hour putting on suits and letting Bev fuss over his lapel and the line of his pants. He could admit as he inspected the results in the full length mirrors lining one wall of the room that there was a huge difference between the suits he wore to work or to family weddings and these.

The one he currently had on was a shiny, cobalt blue with a white shirt and a matching, thin cobalt tie.

“This is it,” Bev said.

“Yes,” Jin agreed.

Eddie frowned and craned his neck to get a full view. “Really?” he asked. “I feel like a hipster.”

“We’ll keep trying then, but can we at least put this in the ‘maybe’ pile?” Bev asked.

Eddie shrugged. “Sure. I think I like the charcoal one better though,” he said as he took off the jacket and handed it to Jin. “Or maybe the black one with the wide lapel. Something with a little more leg room.”

He finished removing the shirt and carefully passed it to Jin as well.

“Pizza’s...here.”

Eddie turned around to see that Richie standing in the doorway with a large pizza box in his hands.

“Thank god,” Eddie said, making his way towards that delicious smell. “I’m fucking starving.”

“Pizza’s here,” Richie repeated and thrust the box at Eddie.

“Uh-uh!” Bev shouted. “Not in my clothes. First we pick a suit, then you can eat.”

Eddie stopped and groaned. He could smell the melting cheese. Since admitting that he wasn’t actually lactose intolerant, cheese had become his favorite food.

“ _Bev_ ,” he complained.

“ _Eddie_ ,” she responded back. “Those pants cost $500, do you really want to get pizza sauce on them?”

Eddie walked back to Bev, but took a moment to glare over his shoulder at Richie as he unzipped the pants. “You better save me some, you asshole.”

He bent over and stepped out of first one leg and then the other, careful not to wrinkle the fabric. Behind him, Richie made a hurt noise that got Eddie’s attention.

“You alright, Rich?” Bev asked.

“Burned myself,” Richie answered. He dropped the pizza box on the table and then sat down heavily on the chair beside it. “Keep going.”

Jin pulled out a tan suit with a matching vest that Eddie already knew he’d hate, but that he obligingly put on anyway and stood with his arms out in front of Bev.

“Doesn’t work with your coloring,” Bev decided. “Richie? What do you think?”

Richie eyed Eddie up and down and decided, “He looks like a game show host.”

“Yeah, not what we’re going for,” Bev said. She twirled her finger. “Off.”

He stripped off the coat and vest and was working on the shirt when Richie’s phone began to ring...and ring...and ring.

Eddie turned to him mid-button. “Rich? Richie!”

“What?” Richie asked.

“Your phone. Richie, your phone is ringing.”

“Wha...oh! I was totally zoned out,” he said, grabbing the phone out of his pocket. “Hey, Ana.” He walked swiftly out of the room to have his conversation.

Bev and Jin exchanged a look behind his back.

“What?” Eddie asked.

Bev shook her head. “Nothing. I’ll stop torturing you and let you eat now.”

Eddie quickly took off the suit and clamored into his own clothes. He lifted the top of the pizza box. Richie hadn’t eaten any of it yet, so Eddie picked the best looking slice and took a bite. Before moving to California, it had been over a decade since Eddie last ate pizza. It was one of the many things that Richie made him try over the last month.

He hoped Bev got her fill of looking at his abs, because they wouldn’t be around for much longer at the rate he was going.

Bev and Jin took slices of their own and they ate quietly for a moment before Bev said, “OK, so what do you think? We’ve narrowed it down to the cobalt, the charcoal and the black. I know you don’t like the skinny cut of the cobalt one, and I know that it doesn’t matter to you or anything, but _for what it’s worth_ , Richie was totally checking out your ass in those pants.”

Jin put his pizza down on a paper towel and wiped his hands before grabbing all three hangers and bringing them over.

“It’s up to you, Eddie,” Bev said.

Eddie snatched the cobalt one from Jin and hissed, “Not one goddamn word, Marsh.”

Bev smiled and mimed zipping her lips.

* * *

Two nights later, Eddie anxiously fiddled with the tie on his new suit. The Losers reunion was great, of course. It was nice to have the gang back together again to celebrate the first clothing line Bev developed without her dumbfuck of an ex-husband.

They got to hear Mike’s stories about traveling the globe and Stan and Patty’s preparations for their baby. Hard to believe they were all over forty, and this would be the first child for any of them. Statistically speaking, that was highly improbable -- until you remembered their collective fucked up trauma, and then is made a lot more sense.

It wasn’t that Eddie was nervous to be around them, but Bev’s show was Richie and Eddie’s official coming out to the media. There had been engineering candid shots for weeks, but that night they were expected to pose for photos and play the happy new couple the whole night. The thought of doing that in front of the knowing eyes of his best friends made the back of his neck sweat.

He looked at himself in the mirror and pushed back an errant strand of hair. Bev had cajoled him into going light on the gel and he already knew it was going to annoy him the whole night. He checked the time on his phone and saw that he’d missed a message in the group chat. Bev and Ben had hired a limo to take them to the show and it was on its way to Eddie’s place.

He pocketed his phone, his id and debit card and his apartment key and headed downstairs to meet everyone. The after party was taking place at a hotel. Bev had bought out a floor of suites for them to stay at when it ended. She promised Eddie that everything he needed would be provided in the rooms. His friends were so fucking rich.

He’d only be waiting a few minutes when the stretch limo turned down his block. It stopped in front of his building and the driver hopped out. She greeted him politely and then opened the limo door.

“Thanks,” Eddie said and dipped his head to get inside.

The back of the limo was huge and dimly lit, and he was the last one to be picked up. Richie, Bill, Audra, Mike, Stan and Patty were all lounging in the back, drinking out of champagne flutes and listening to music.

He was greeted with several happy cheers as he sat down beside Richie.

“There’s not enough seat belts,” Richie said when Eddie finished arranging himself. “Don’t worry, I’m planning to write an angry letter to the limo company tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, shut up,” Eddie said.

“You look handsome, Eddie,” Patty said. She wore a light purple dress with a deep v-neck that curved over the pregnant line of her belly.

“You look gorgeous,” he responded and pushed his hair out of his face. “You too, Audra. I look ridiculous.”

“No, you can believe anything Patty says right now,” Stan told him. “The hormones make her brutally honest.”

Patty reached into her little purse and pulled out a box of mints. “Take one of these, your breath stinks,” she said with a smirk and they laughed.

“Nice weather, right?” Richie asked, looking right at Stan. “It’s always like this here, even in the winter.”

“Stop, Richie,” Stan said with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s a lovely day,” Patty agreed.

“Don’t encourage him,” Stan said.

Richie leaned forward. “Patty, I happen to have some information about the excellent local school systems around here pulled up on my phone, if you’re interested.”

“Richie…” Stan warned, but Patty winked and mouthed ‘later’ to Richie, who winked back and tapped his nose.

“You do look good,” Richie whispered to him when he settled back in his seat.

Eddie ran his hands over his thighs. “Yeah?” he asked. “Movie star fake boyfriend material?”

Richie bumped his shoulder. “Definitely. J-Lo wishes she was me.”

Eddie gave him an unimpressed glare, but admitted, “You look nice too.”

That was an understatement for the things his navy and black pinstriped suit jacket and black silk bow tie -- another Marsh original -- did for him. But then again, last week, Eddie’d gone over to Richie’s house and saw him wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt and the brightest yellow cargo pants he’d ever seen and still wanted to jump him. So it was possible that Eddie wasn’t the best judge of what did and didn’t look good on Richie.

“Thanks,” Richie said with a pleased smile.

Eddie nudged his knee against Richie’s and dipped his head when Richie returned the gesture. When he looked up, Mike was staring at them, his eyebrows raised. Eddie flushed and turned away, putting some space between him and Richie for the rest of the ride.

* * *

There was no red carpet or line of cameras and journalists the way that Eddie had feared, just a sporadic few reporters wearing badges around their necks and a backdrop where Bev was posing for pictures with the VIPs.

“Ready for your big Hollywood debut?” Richie asked as he came up beside Eddie.

“This isn’t so bad,” he commented. Everyone was dressed to the nines, but so was Eddie, so he didn’t feel out of place.

“That’s the spirit,” Richie said.

“Pretty fancy for a giant pregnant lady,” Patty said, her hand holding her belly.

Stan kissed her cheek. “You’re the most beautiful person here.”

Suddenly, Richie gave a surprised laugh. “Oh shit, don’t look now.”

“What?” Eddie asked, glancing around.

“It’s my ex,” Richie said wryly. He nodded his head to the left and Eddie whipped around to see Chad fucking Wickham talking to a reporter.

“What the fuck is he doing here?” Eddie demanded.

“At the biggest party of the weekend?” Richie responded. “The answer’s in the question, Eds.”

As they watched, Chad noticed them from across the room and started to make his way through the crowd towards him.

“He’s coming over,” Mike whispered, as if that fact wasn’t abundantly clear.

“Here we go,” Richie said under his breath and then a wide, fake smile spread across his face. “Chad!”

“Richie!” the asshole responded. Just the sound of his voice put Eddie’s teeth on edge. He walked up to them and reached out to hug Richie. Eddie’s hands clenched into fists at his sides as he heard the sounds of cameras shuttering all around them. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Richie responded.

“Is this your boyfriend?” Chad asked. He put a sarcastic little twist on the word even as he continued to grin.

“Uh, yeah. Eddie, this is Chad. Chad, Eddie,” Richie introduced.

Chad held out a hand for Eddie to shake. “Nice to meet the man who stole him away from me.”

 _Fuck off fuck off fuck off_ , Eddie thought, but still grasped his hand and gave a terse, “Hi.”

“We’re Richie and Eddie’s other friends,” Stan interrupted, stepping forward and extending his hand out. “I’m Stan, this is my wife, Patty. And that’s Mike, Bill and Audra.”

Chad returned the greeting to all of them.

“I’m a big fan,” he said to Audra.

Then he turned to Bill and his smile notched up to stadium-lighting levels of brightness. “Wow, William Denbrough. I love your books. If you’re going to be around later, it would be great if we could talk about collaborating.”

Eddie coughed to disguise his scoff, and Richie kicked him lightly on the ankle.

Bill, probably used to that kind of thing, said, “Sure, if we see each other.”

“Awesome, I’ll look for you. It was nice to meet all of you. Richie, good seeing you again.”

“Enjoy the show,” Richie said.

“Awkward,” Stan whispered when Chad left.

Richie clapped his hands once. “Well, that happened. Now let’s forget about it and go see Bev.”

“Hi, Richie?” A woman approached wearing a lanyard and holding a recorder.

“We’re just gonna go,” Mike said. Bill and Audra had already retreated towards the photo area with Bev, and the rest followed, leaving Richie and Eddie with the reporter.

“Yes, hello,” Richie said.

“My name is Victoria Alvarez from _Vogue_ magazine. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” she said.

“Nope, go for it.”

“Richie Tozier, you don’t seem like the fashion show type. What brings you here today?” She placed the recorder up to Richie’s face.

“Bevvy is an old friend of ours. We’re here to support her,” Richie answered with a smile.

“And this is your boyfriend, I’m assuming?” she asked, nodding at Eddie.

“Yup, this is Eddie,” Richie said. He draped his arm around Eddie’s back and pulled him close. Then he pressed an impromptu kiss to his temple that set Eddie’s heart racing.

“You two make a cute couple,” she said. “And you know Beverly Marsh too?”

Eddie cleared his throat as she turned the recorder towards him. “Um, we all grew up together. She gave me this suit to wear tonight so that I wouldn’t embarrass her.”

The interviewer laughed lightly. “Well, you both look great. I’ll let you go. Have a wonderful night.”

“You too,” Richie said and the two of them moved on.

When she saw them, she waved them over with a wide grin.

“Come on, everyone!” she said. “Ben, you get in here too!”

The Losers and their partners all gathered together in front of the backdrop with Bev in the middle.

“This is my family,” Bev told the photographers and they all smiled as the flashes went off.

* * *

There were cocktails and hors d’oeuvres served at the hotel after party, with a dance floor in the center. Eddie found an empty table in the back to relax after all the photos and hobnobbing was over. He was exhausted, but so proud of Bev, who was holding court in the center of the room with Ben on her arm.

Stan joined him after a while, sliding a drink over to him.

“Hey,” Stan said.

Eddie lifted the glass in salute and took a sip, immediately identifying the whisky and bitters of a Manhattan.

“Hey,” Eddie returned. “Where’s Patty?”

“In the bathroom for the tenth time. Don’t tell her I complained about it or she’ll give me a lecture,” Stan said.

A model wearing clothes from Bev’s new line offered them a tray full of some kind of mushroom appetizer. They both shook their heads no and she moved on.

“Our friends' fucking lives, man,” Stan remarked.

“ _Right_?” Eddie said and they both laughed in disbelief.

“So how are things going with ‘Operation Reddie’?” Stan made ironic air quotes around the name.

Eddie grimaced and took a longer drink. _Too good._ “Fine,” he said out loud and then added, “A little uncomfortable, I guess.”

“Uncomfortable how?” Stan asked.

“What do you mean how?” Eddie scoffed. “Richie’s my friend and now we’re constantly touching each other and pretending to be together. It’s objectively weird.”

“I get that,” Stan said. He hesitated in a way that meant he had more to say. “Eddie, listen. I know that Derry fucked us all up in unique and awful ways, but Richie…”

“Richie what?” Eddie coaxed.

Stan sighed. “Friend to friend, just try not to hurt him after all this is over,” he finished.

Eddie blinked at him, uncomprehending. “How the hell would I be the one hurting _him_?”

Stan stared at him for a moment and then said, “Huh.” A quizzical smile curled around the edge of his mouth. “OK.”

Eddie’s guard came up at the knowing look. “What does that mean?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” Stan said, sipping his drink.

“Stan…”

“Eddie…”

“You know I’ve always hated when you pulled this wise old man bullshit,” Eddie said, recalling years of Stan’s smug face passing judgment on him when they were kids.

“At least we actually are old men now,” Stan commented and Eddie groaned.

“Don’t remind me,” Eddie said.

Just then, Richie appeared at his elbow, his hair a sweaty mess around his head and his suit jacket missing.

“What are you two talking about over here?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Eddie answered quickly.

“The unrelenting passage of time,” Stan responded.

“Preach, brother,” Richie said. “Eds, your presence is required on the dance floor.”

“I’m not dancing,” Eddie whined, but he went without resistance when Richie took hold of his tie and began leading him out.

“On orders from Beverly. You can take it up with her,” Richie said. “Stanley, you want to get in on this?”

“Not at all,” Stan responded. “You kids have fun.”

They made their way through the crowd of people until they reached Bev, who gave an excited shout when she saw him.

“Eddie!” she cried, beaming at him. “You’re here!”

“I’ve been here,” he said.

“Bev’s wasted,” Bill said over the sound of the pounding bass.

“No, I’m not!” she argued. “I’m pleasantly buzzed. Now dance with me, Edward!”

“No, Bev — “ he began, but she ignored it and gave a shimmy.

“It’s my big day, you’re dancing with me,” she said. “I did it, Eddie. All on my own.”

“You did it,” he agreed. He tried a little shuffle step that was not at all in time with the music.

“And all my people are here. I’ve never been this happy. Eddie, have you ever been this happy?”

Eddie’s eyes slid against his will over to Richie, who was gamely twirling Audra. She laughed as she spun under his arm, her high heels grasped in her free hand.

When he turned back, Bev was watching him kindly. She leaned in close to his ear and said, “I think you should go for it.”

“Go for what?” he asked.

But before she could answer, the song changed to something slow and Bev pulled away.

“Sorry, Eddie, I need my man for this one.”

Ben appeared to have the same idea, because he cut in front of Eddie with an apologetic smile and whisked Bev away.

Around Eddie, pairs were coupling up and swaying to the music. Richie came to stand beside him.

“It’s like being back in middle school,” Eddie joked.

“Yeah, but with one difference,” Richie said.

“Ben’s hot now?” Eddie guessed.

Richie snorted. “OK, two differences then.”

“And what’s the other?”

“We have dates,” Richie replied and dragged Eddie to him by the waist and catching his other hand in his.

“Richie…”

“Prurient eyes are watching, Eddie,” Richie murmured, his head bent down close. “We wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

“Fuck them,” Eddie replied, but he allowed Richie to lead him in a slow sway around the dance floor. “You’re so sweaty.” He could feel the heat radiating off of Richie everywhere they touched.

“Some of us have been cutting a rug on the dance floor while others were hiding in the corner,” Richie answered.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Eddie argued. They turned together and Eddie saw Chad across the room, leaning against the bar and watching them with a smirk. He pressed in closer to Richie and hissed. “I still can’t believe that asshole is here.”

“Who, Chad?” Richie asked. “Forget about him. He’s yesterday’s news. You’re today’s big story, baby.”

Eddie dipped his head until it rested on Richie’s shoulder and huffed out a laugh. “You’re so stupid.”

“Mmm, don’t I know it,” Richie agreed. He let go of Eddie’s hand and reached around to the back of his head, running his fingers lightly through the loose hair at the base of Eddie’s neck. “I like your hair like this.”

Eddie suppressed a shiver, and having nothing else to do with his free hand, wrapped it around Richie’s waist with his other one. _Have you ever been this happy?_

“Bev made me do it,” he said.

“It reminds me of when we were kids,” Richie said.

“Remember when Bill got gum in it?” Eddie asked.

“We tried to cut it out,” Richie said. They were close enough that Eddie could feel Richie’s laugh rumble in his chest.

“My mom was so mad,” Eddie said.

The shit eating grin Richie shot him told Eddie he was about to say something obnoxious, and Eddie wasn't disappointed. “We’re bringing up all my exes tonight, I see,” Richie said.

“How are you always like this?” Eddie asked with a shake of his head.

“Special talent,” Richie responded.

“It’s a special something,” Eddie retorted. It was then that the lyrics of the song came into focus.

_Girl, you’re my best friend Girl, you’re my love within I just want you to know That I will always love you_

“Wait, is this New Kids on the Block?” Eddie asked.

“Yes, it is.”

The voice wasn’t Richie’s. Eddie looked over to see Stan and Patty dancing next to them. Stan pinned Eddie with that same knowing expression from before and Eddie glared back.

“Fucking Ben,” Richie said, oblivious to the silent conversation happening between Eddie and Stan.

Stan gave up first, shaking his head and dancing Patty away from them.

Richie’s hand settled comfortably on the nape of Eddie’s neck, his other one tucked at the small of his back. Their cheeks brushed, Eddie’s nose rubbing against Richie's stubble.

The song ended and they stopped moving as a cheery pop song started. Eddie could feel it when Richie swallowed and exhaled a harsh breath. Richie let him go, hands his dropping as he took a step back. Eddie did the same and looked up at Richie, who stared at him with wide eyes and a faint flush.

“Eddie?” he asked.

_Kiss him._

“I...uh. I have to take a piss,” Eddie said.

Something flickered over Richie’s face quickly before he nodded and took another step away from Eddie. The dance floor had been warm before, but now it felt ice cold.

“Alright,” Richie said.

Eddie turned heel and pushed through the crowd. He refused to even glance at Stan as he made a beeline for the bathrooms.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered to himself the whole way.

He yanked open the bathroom door, thankful that it was empty and put his head in the hands.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he shouted. He went to the sink and stared at his reflection. His face was bright red, his hair wild. His eyes looked savage, nearly all pupil. His hands were shaking and he slapped them at the faucet, turning the water and splashing it on his face to try and cool off.

What was that? What the fuck was that? For one insane moment, he’d almost done it. He’d almost kissed Richie —the one fucking thing that Richie said was off limits. Could he have been anymore obvious, holy shit.

The bathroom door creaked open and Eddie turned to see Chad walk in.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Eddie said.

“Hey, you’re Eddie, right?” Chad said. He no longer had the overly-genial expression from earlier. Now he looked at Eddie curiously, like studying a bug under a microscope.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. He grabbed some paper towels from the machine and wiped his face and hands, eager to get out of there.

“It was cool of you to do this for Richie,” Chad said.

“Uh-huh,” Eddie said. He threw the towels out and headed for the door.

“Honestly, I’m glad you took that bullet for me,” he continued and Eddie froze.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“No offense, but he’s just, you know…”

Eddie could hear the blood rushing through his ears. “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

Chad raised his hands, that stupid fucking smirk back on his face. Did he get that thing surgically applied on, or what? Eddie was about ten seconds from tearing it off with his bare hands.

“I didn’t know it was like that, OK? Forget I said anything. It’s all good, man.” He backed out of the bathroom, that smirk never leaving his face.

Once he was gone, Eddie kicked a garbage can, sending it skittering across the floor. He slapped a hand on the tile of the wall and then pulled away, disgusted before giving his hands another good scrub in the sink. Then he righted the garbage can and took some deep breaths before returning to the party.

* * *

Eddie spent the rest of the night hiding in the corner the way that Richie accused him earlier. This time Richie didn’t bother coming to find him, and Eddie didn’t seek him out. He nursed one rum and coke and waited for him friends to be done.

People began to clear out an hour or so later, but the diehards were still on the dance floor urging the DJ on. Eddie had nearly given up and gone to find his hotel room without the rest of them when he saw Stan and Patty walking towards him.

“That’s it for us tonight,” Stan said.

“The baby’s ready for bed,” Patty agreed, tapping her belly.

“Me too,” Eddie said, happy not to be the one leaving first at Bev’s party.

“You guys going?” And there was Bev, looking exuberant, her makeup still perfect, Ben at her side.

“Yeah, I think so,” Patty said. “Sorry.”

“No, we’ll join you,” Bev said. “The staff can handle the rest of this and Jin is still around here somewhere.”

“Losers even at our own parties,” Richie said, walking up with Mike, Bill and Audra. He wouldn’t even look at Eddie.

“Speak for yourself,” Mike said. “I’m on Tokyo time right now.”

“I just put on a successful fashion show,” Bev said.

“And I go where she goes,” Ben added.

“Oh please,” Bill said. “Let’s j-just admit that we’re old.”

Richie threw an arm around Bill’s shoulders. “Never, Billy! I’m like Peter Pan, I’ll never grow up.”

As a group, they left the hotel’s ballroom and made their way across the empty lobby to the elevators.

“You know, I actually believe that about you, Richie,” Audra said.

“Thank you, Audra. That’s why I like you the most,” Richie said.

Bev reached out and linked her arm through Stan’s. “It was fun, us all being together, wasn’t it, Stan?”

“I’m too tired for this, Bev,” Stan complained.

Ben hit the elevator button and they waited. Eddie stared at the floor.

“Richie, are you taking off?” Chad walked in from a side entrance with pack of cigarettes in his hand. “Mr. Denbrough, sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk earlier. Would you want to exchange emails?”

Bill gave him a friendly smile. “I can get you in touch with my --”

Eddie was done. He was _done_.

“Oh, fuck off!” he shouted, rounding on Chad, his body tight as a bow.

“-- Eddie?” Bill asked, confused.

Chad said, “I think I might have offended you earlier -- “

“What? Earlier when?” Richie asked from behind him.

But Eddie wasn’t listening. He reached out and shoved Chad with all his momentum behind him, knocking him to the ground.

“Hey!” “Whoa!” “Eddie!”

Arms wrapped around Eddie and dragged him away. Chad scurried out the side door as Eddie tried to claw free. It was only Bev stepping into view and Eddie remembering that this was her party that finally stilled him.

“I’m fine,” Eddie said, the fight draining out of him. “Let me go, I’m fine. Fuck.”

The arms released him, and Eddie saw that it had been Mike holding him back.

“What the hell was that?” Richie hissed, looking around the lobby for any spectators. “What did he mean about offending you?”

“That asshole, that _prick_...” Eddie began. His breath was coming out in shallow gasps like he was on his way to a panic attack. “In the bathroom…”

“Where is the e-elevator?” Bill asked.

“He thanked me for ‘taking the bullet’ of dating you for him. He was talking such _bullshit_!”

Richie stared at him. “So? I already knew that. Eddie, I _told_ you that.”

“Who does that little pissant think he is?” Eddie demanded.

“Eddie, calm down,” Bev said. “You’re freaking us out.”

“He thinks he’s better than you? He should be so fucking lucky to get to date you! Richie, he should be so fucking lucky! If it was me -- !”

Eddie froze, his heart jumping into his throat and his stomach dropping.

“Oh shit,” Mike said.

“I knew it,” Stan added.

Eddie glared at him. “Stan, _shut up_!”

“Eds?” Richie’s voice was quiet, but Eddie heard it as loudly as a gunshot. “If it was you what?”

“Fuck this,” Eddie said just as the elevator doors opened. He jumped in and pressed the button to close the doors again.

“Oh, no way,” Richie said and hopped in with him. When Eddie tried to get back out, Richie grabbed his suit jacket and held on. “Nope, not a chance.”

The others stood in the lobby staring at the two of them.

“Stanley, your _friends_ ,” Patty said as the doors slid shut.

“Believe me, honey, I know,” Stan answered.

* * *

Eddie crossed his arms over his chest and crammed into one end of the elevator. Richie looked ready to say something, but then glanced up at the security camera blinking down at them and went to his own end of the elevator.

As soon as they got to the right floor, Eddie made a dash for his room. He unlocked the door, but Richie followed at his heels, pushing in after him and slamming it shut.

“Get out of my room, Richie,” Eddie said.

“If you think you can drop that bomb on me and then I’d just let you leave, you’re out of your goddamn mind,” Richie said.

“Then _I’ll_ go if you won’t,” Eddie said.

Richie threw his hand out and grabbed the door handle. “No, we’re talking about this!”

“I’m not gonna let you turn this into a fucking joke!” Eddie said.

“Eddie, does it look like I’m laughing?” Richie asked.

Feeling trapped, Eddie sat heavily on the bed.

“You will be,” he promised. “Look, I’m sorry about freaking out at Chad.”

Richie threw his arms up in the air. “ _I don’t fucking care about Chad_! Oh my _god_!”

Eddie’s head dropped into his hands. “Shit. Shit, Rich. I was so jealous.”

“Of Chad?” Richie asked carefully.

Eddie didn’t say anything. The answer was self-evident.

“Eddie, what would you do if it was you?” Richie asked again.

He stayed quiet. After a moment, Richie knelt in front of him.

“Fuck,” Eddie said quietly.

“Eddie, baby, come on. Just give me something here. Give me anything,” Richie said.

Slowly, Eddie looked up at Richie’s face, handsome and concerned. He reached out and put his hands on Richie’s shoulders and took a deep breath.

“I would...Richie, I’d be proud, OK?” he said. Richie began to blink behind his glasses and his expression softened. “I’d take care of you. I’d _love_ \-- “

That was as far as he got before Richie surged up and kissed him.

“I love you,” Richie said, and it sounded like the words burst out of him. “I fucking love you. I’ve loved you since we were kids.”

“Me too,” Eddie gasped, chasing the taste of Richie’s mouth. He kissed him again. “I didn’t know at the time. Until I got my memories back, but it’s always been you, Richie.”

Richie turned his head away, and Eddie thought he’d said something wrong until Richie took off his glasses and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He let out a shuddering sob, hiding his face from Eddie.

“Way to ruin the mood, god,” he choked as he tossed his glasses on the nightstand.

“You didn’t ruin anything, what the fuck,” Eddie said. “Come here.”

Richie turned back and Eddie pulled him closer. Richie’s arms wrapped around his waist and he tucked his wet face in Eddie’s shoulder.

“I’m so glad I’m here with you, Rich. In LA, in this room, whatever. I’m just glad,” Eddie said.

“Look at us right now,” Richie said. “How embarrassing. Can I?” He gestured to the buttons on Eddie’s shirt.

Eddie nodded and worked on his tie at the same time. Richie slowly undid the whole shirt, spreading the two sides apart. Eddie took care of the rest, removing his jacket along with the shirt and his white undershirt.

Richie, still on his knees, bent down and kissed Eddie’s stomach, making the muscles jump, and then moved up to his chest and his nipples, the jut of his collarbones, the curve of his shoulder blade.

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Richie groaned.

“Your turn,” Eddie said. “Richie, now you.”

Richie stood up and kicked off his shoes while he worked on the buttons of his shirt, his jacket having been discarded at some point. Eddie watched as he unzipped his pants and pushed them off, along with his underwear, shoes and socks.

Then he got all the way on the bed. He rested his head against the pillows and stroked his hard cock as he watched Richie finish undressing.

“Am I dreaming?” Richie asked, standing naked beside the bed, his cock curved up towards his stomach. “Because I think I’ve had this exact dream.”

“Get over here, would you?” Eddie demanded.

Richie crawled between Eddie’s spread legs and ran his hands up Eddie’s thighs.

Eddie’s eyes squeezed shut and his dick jumped in his hand. “Oh fuuuck,” he gasped at the featherlight touch.

“How is this happening?” Richie asked, staring down at Eddie, an awestruck look on his face.

“Richie, I wanna...I wanna have sex with you -- “ Richie made a soft noise at that, but Eddie continued, “But I’ve never done it with a man before.”

Richie shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I won’t know what to do,” Eddie insisted.

“Eds.” Richie gave his dick a rough jerk. “I promise it’s not gonna matter. What do you want? I’ll do whatever you want.”

“I don’t…” A thousand possibilities ran through Eddie’s head, but he landed on the one that hit him the hardest. “I want your body on top of me.”

Richie’s eyes darkened and he stroked himself again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed. His skin tingled just thinking about it. “I saw you that night in your kitchen, do you remember?” Richie nodded and Eddie continued. “Those big fucking arms and your chest, Richie.”

“You asked me if I’d been working out,” Richie said.

“I went back in the guest room and jerked off so hard I saw stars,” Eddie said. “I didn’t even make it to the bed, I just did it against the wall.”

Richie whined and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “You have to stop talking -- “

“Then make me,” Eddie challenged and Richie fell into him and captured him in a deep kiss, his arms braced above Eddie’s head. As soon as he got close enough, Eddie wrapped both of his legs around Richie’s waist and anchored him in. Then he fit a hand between their bodies and did his best to jerk both of their dicks as they thrust, uncoordinated and so fucking good.

Richie’s weight on top of him was exactly right, even better than he thought it would be. He dug his other hand into Richie’s hair and hung on. The sloppy, slick friction of their dicks rocking together was going to put Eddie over the edge any second.

He tore his mouth away from Richie’s so that he could take a breath, so Richie went down to his neck instead, sucking at his jugular like a fucking vampire.

“I’m gonna come,” Eddie gasped. “Keep doing that. Oh god, keep doing that and I’m gonna lose it, Richie.”

Richie’s mouth went down further, exploring the ticklish inside of Eddie’s elbow, the dip between his collarbones. The final killing blow, though, was the unexpected sensation of his stubble scratching against one of Eddie’s nipples.

Eddie moaned and jerked hard, coming on his hand and his stomach, Richie’s hips snapping on top of him all the way through it, and then he was coming too, a soft sigh the only warning Eddie received before it hit.

When the tension left his body, Eddie unhooked his ankles from around Richie’s back and dropped his cramping legs onto the mattress. 

He hit Richie’s shoulder. “Get off me, you’re heavy now.”

Richie rolled over onto the other side of the bed. Eddie looked down at the mess on his stomach and chest and grimaced. “I’m disgusting.”

“Here,” Richie said and tossed him a box of tissue from the nightstand.

Eddie grabbed a handful and wiped away the worst of it. He tossed them in the direction of the garbage can near the desk.

“So, any update on your opinion of my kissing technique?” Richie asked him with a cheeky grin.

“Richie, I wanted to rip that fucking guy’s throat out when I saw that picture. Could we please not talk about that right now?” Eddie groaned.

”But I don’t understand why. You know I didn’t care about him,” Richie said.

Eddie put his arm over his eyes. “I was on the other side of the country and I was so fucking gone for you. I felt so helpless and miserable and...”

Eddie jumped at the feeling of Richie pressing a soft kiss to the arm covering his eyes. He lifted it away and saw Richie smiling down at him, his eyes bright.

“Hey, remember our first kiss?” Richie asked.

“It was five minutes ago,” Eddie replied.

“Come on, that was at least ten minutes. But no, not that kiss. Our _first_ kiss, in high school,” Richie clarified.

“Oh. Yeah. Why?” Eddie asked.

“I jerked off thinking about that kiss every night until I couldn’t remember it anymore,” Richie said.

Eddie lifted his head. “You’re lying.”

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to get up the guts to do that? Even as a joke? _Weeks_ ,” Richie said. “And I finally got the nerve at Stan’s house with all our other friends there. I had to lay on my stomach because I was hard for like an hour after.”

“Remember the hammock in the clubhouse?” Eddie asked.

Richie laughed. “You mean the hammock of my sexual awakening? I remember it vaguely.”

Eddie shook his head. “Wow, we were so dumb back then.”

“Being fair, Eds, we’re barely doing any better now,” Richie said.

“True,” Eddie said. “Do you think the others know we had sex?”

“Probably,” Richie replied. “Is that alright?”

“I want them to know. I want everyone to know,” Eddie said.

“That can be arranged,” Richie said. He got out of bed and walked around to where his clothes were scattered on the floor. Eddie admired the long line of his naked body as moved. He came back with his phone in hand.

Leaning over so that Eddie could see what he was doing, he pulled up the group chat.

 **Richie:** Eddie wants me to make it very clear to you all that we just banged.

Eddie took the phone from him and pulled up the camera. He tilted it so that only their faces and the pillows behind them were in the shot, but it was still clear what they had been up to. He saved it as Richie put his chin on Eddie’s shoulder and watched.

“Oh, you really mean _everyone_ ,” Richie said when Eddie clicked on the Twitter app and added the photo to a post.

“This good?” he asked before going further.

“It’s great,” Richie said.

**richie tozier ✓ @thetrashmouth**  
_Had fun at @BeverlyMarsh’s show and an even better time after it._

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this blanket permission to use this story for any remix, podfic, translation, fanart or other transformative work you'd like, but please inform me, credit me and provide me any links so that I can include it in the notes.
> 
> Hang out with me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/theres-a-goldensky)!


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